Google's fatcat boss was told he “lives in a different world” today after admitting he has no idea how much he gets paid.
Multi-millionaire Matt Brittin, president of Google Europe, Middle
East and Africa, was unable to tell MPs the size of his own salary.
“It's a salary, errr, I don't have the figure,” the stammering Google chief said. “I'll provide the figure privately if it is relevant for the committee to understand my salary.”
Brittin is appearing before the Public Accounts Committee where he
is being grilled about the 'sweetheart' deal that will see the tech
giant pay just £130million in back taxes despite making sales of more
than £4.6bn in the UK.
Asked by committee chair Meg Hillier MP what he was paid, Brittin replied: “I don't have the figure..."
MPs erupted in scornful laughter to his comments. Ms Hillier said he was living on a "different planet."
“You don’t know what you get paid, Mr Brittin? Taxpayers out
there are very angry. They live in a different world to what you live
in, clearly. Perhaps you’ve got tin ears!” she said.
She added: “Don’t you feel a bit embarrassed by this? You don’t
know how much you are paid. You are living on a different planet to
most of our constituents.
"Out there, taxpayers, our constituents, are very angry, they
live in a different world clearly to the world you live in, if you can't
even tell us what you are paid.
"It seems a bit of a PR disaster if you didn't have the nous to
realise in the same week that taxpayers were filing their tax returns,
and sweating over a little bit of bank interest and getting it in on
time, and you announce this as a good deal."
Mr Brittin responded: "I understand the anger and understand
that people when they see reported that we are paying 3% tax would be
angry. But we're not. We're paying 20% tax."
The £130 million figure was "the conclusion of a six-year rigorous,
independent tax audit in which we are paying tax at 20% like every
other UK company", he said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment