A wide perquisiton conducted at Google headquarters in Paris – Le Monde

According to World , confirming those published earlier by the Paris , a search is underway this Tuesday, May 24 in the offices of Google in Paris, as part of a tax fraud investigation.

According to Le Parisien no fewer than a hundred tax officials and law enforcement brigade of the great financial crime (BRGDF) and five public financial national parquet participate in this operation, which would have started at five in the morning. It would follow a complaint Bercy suspect that the US giant digital tax evasion.

In June 2011, already several searches and seizures had been made in the Paris offices of Google France in an investigation on the “transfer pricing” between the French branch of the American company and the European headquarters, located in Ireland, a country with of taxation on corporate profits (12 5%) among the lowest in the EU.

under fire from critics in Europe

Google is within the scope of a tax investigation France since 2011. in February, Reuters and AFP agencies claimed that the french tax authorities demanded 1.6 billion euros in tax arrears Internet giant. The Finance Ministry does not confirm that figure, citing tax secrecy, as he refused to comment on the level of the fine to which the US giant could face. For its part, the search engine has continued to assert that “complied with tax laws in all countries in which it operates” .

In Europe the tax optimization of the American giant practices are under fire from critics. In January, the announcement of an agreement of 130 million pounds ($ 166 million) between HM Revenue and Google, to cover a tax dispute for 10 years in 2005 to 2015, set fire to the powder. The amount was considered “disproportionately small compared to the size of Google’s business in the UK” , recalled Wednesday, February 24 British parliamentarians. In France, the finance minister, Michel Sapin, disputed any arrangement similar . “The French tax authorities do not negotiate the amount of taxes” , launched the Minister on February 2

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Google and other US corporations such as Amazon or Facebook are regularly accused of evading taxes, both the US and Europe, for example by choosing to s’ settle in countries where taxation is more favorable to them. Practices, do they defend, “tax optimization” .