Google’s tax dodging deal

The government thinks it can get away with its tax-dodging deal with Google. They agreed a secret deal letting Google pay a tiny amount of tax – supposedly less than 3% of their profits, and they’re hoping they can ride out the media storm. We can change that.

On Thursday, the European Commission boss in charge of big business said she’ll investigate the government’s dodgy deal with Google – if someone complains. She’s got the power to overrule George Osborne, and kick Google into line. So we decided to send her a huge people-powered complaint and kick-start her investigation.

One or two voices might not be enough to make sure she investigates – but thousands could  be. That’s where 38 Degrees members come in.

You can sign the petition here.

Over 100,000 of us had signed the petition within 24 hours – so the office team delivered the petition to the European Commission in London on Friday afternoon.

Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission boss, is weighing up whether or not to intervene in the Google deal.  A huge, people-powered petition will send her a powerful message: the British public expect her to investigate this unfair deal. And it’ll show our government that they can’t get away with cosying up to big corporations.

Google makes billions of pounds in profit from the UK. If they paid their taxes like everyone else, it would mean so much more money for our NHS, schools and public services.

38 Degrees members have been at the heart of investigating dodgy corporate deals before. Last year thousands of us came together to expose the Mayfair Loophole – a tax dodge that allowed millionaire bosses to avoid paying hundreds of millions of pounds in tax. And we forced the government to start to close the loophole.

The next step is to make sure we keep putting pressure on Margrethe Vestager to investigate Google – she’s done it before, now it’s time to do it again. Watch this space!