Google Resolves Long-Running Tax Dispute With Australia

The search engine giant Google has finally settled a decade-long tax dispute with the Australian Taxation Office, according to Reuters.

What Happened

The ATO said on Wednesday that Alphabet Inc’s GOOGL Google has agreed to pay an additional A$481.5 million ($326.75 million USD) to settle a long-standing tax dispute.

The settlement, which comes following an audit of the search giant’s tax practices between 2008 and 2018, will provide “certainty in relation to future tax treatment," said a spokesperson for Google.

Why It Matters

With Google’s A$481.5 million, The ATO has now recovered a total of $1.25 billion in taxes from global companies.

The Australian authority has recently settled tax disputes with big tech companies, such as Microsoft Corporation MSFT, Apple Inc. AAPL and Facebook, Inc. FB, under the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law.

“Thanks to the efforts of our ATO officers under the Tax Avoidance Taskforce and the introduction of the MAAL, Australian sourced sales by these digital giants will now be returned to Australia’s tax base,” said the ATO said in a statement.

In 2016, the Austrian government created a Tax Avoidance Taskforce, comprising of 1,000 officers to launch a crackdown on multinational companies' accounting practices.

That, Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said, helped recover taxes from multinationals and large corporations.

“Ensuring large companies and multinationals pay the right amount of tax means we can continue to deliver the essential services Australians rely on,” said Frydenberg.