French authorities this morning raided Google's Paris HQ, seeking more information for an ongoing tax fraud case.
Investigators have been at Google's offices since 0500 am (0300 GMT), a source told Reuters. “A raid is underway at Google's,” the source said. There are supposedly 100 investigators at the scene, all searching for more information regarding tax fraud.
France is seeking 1.6 billion euros in back taxes from Google, citing that the search giant's use of “aggressive tax optimization techniques” was shameful. It's not just France that's upset with how Google has handled taxes, though. Britain and other countries have all been aggravated with how both Google, Yahoo!, and other digital companies accrue profit in their countries, but have their tax base in another country.
Google back in January paid 130 million pounds in back taxes to the British government and will probably end up doing something similar with the French government, though that could potentially be a much larger number.
Google has not yet commented on the raid, but we'll hopefully hear something solid soon.
source: Reuters
