Google: Our low tax bill is fine because we bring so much to the UK

The executive chairman of Google has argued that the company’s minute UK corporation tax bill is entirely justified.

The company came in for fierce criticism when it emerged that it paid just 6m in UK corporation tax in its last financial year. That’s for a company worth over 175bn.

But Eric Schmidt argues that Google brings so much to the UK in forms of extra business that it’s low tax payments should not be a concern.

"Britain has been a very good market for us,” he told Radio 4’s The World at One. "We empower literally billions of pounds of start-ups through our advertising network and so forth. And we’re a key part of the electronic commerce expansion of Britain, which is driving a lot of economic growth for the country.

"I think the most important thing to say about our taxes is that we fully comply with the law and we’ll obviously, should the law change, we’ll comply with that as well."