He might well be right you know:
However, Mr Schmidt told the Edinburgh Television Festival yesterday that Google \”loves\” Britain and would pay more tax if it were legally required to do so. He said the company\’s hands were tied by Britain\’s low tax demands.
\”It is true we could pay more tax but we would have to do so voluntarily. It\’s called paying the legally minimum amount of tax required,\” he said.
\”The fact of the matter is there are lots of benefits to [being in Britain]. It\’s very good for us, but to go back to shareholders and say \’We looked at 200 countries but felt sorry for those British people so we want to [pay them more]\’ . . . there is probably some law against doing that.\”
The directors of a corporation that is voluntarily paying more tax than it needs to are probably in breach of their fiduciary duty to said shareholders.
Why the uncertainty? Couldn’t he sort of just look it up on a search engine?
Englishman, he probably knows not to trust the answer.
This is just posturing. If tax went up in the UK to the point he suggested they would move. It’s the popular tune to sing at the moment.
Yeah, right…
He could just rent a yacht for a week and invite Osborne for a few dinners and Hey Presto! a new rate of tax for IT behemoths.
Don’t hold your breath.