Google chairman Eric Schmidt and Apple CEO Tim Cook may be rivals but they both agree that government officials need to look at themselves in the mirror more when they decry the low tax rates paid by major tech companies. Per BBC News, Schmidt this week said that Google paid all the taxes it was legally required to pay in the United Kingdom and said that governments should change the laws if they want companies to pay more.
“If the British system changes the tax laws, then we will comply,” Schmidt said. “If the taxes go up, we will pay more, if they go down, we will pay less. That is a political decision for the democracy that is the United Kingdom.”
Schmidt’s comments echo those made by Tim Cook, who recently defended his company’s tax avoidance strategy during a Senate hearing by pointing out that everything his company did was perfectly legal and that many companies do everything they can to keep their tax bills as low as possible.
