In an interview to be broadcast later today on The World, BBC Radio 4, Eric Schmidt says his company has invested heavily in the United Kingdom and his services improve the economy for the country, reports BBC news.
Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, says his company will always abide by the law in terms of paying taxes efficiently, as Britain has been a promising market for the company's profits. Several multinational companies, including Google, Amazon and Starbucks, were criticized over the little taxes they pay on their UK earnings.
Schmidt, however, defended his company for paying over $9 million as corporation tax on the company's profits of over $600 million in the UK. "Britain has been a very good market for us. We empower literally billions of pounds of start-ups through our advertising network and so forth. And we're a key part of the electronic commerce expansion of Britain, which is driving a lot of economic growth for the country," Schmidt said.
He further said that his company is bound to pay any tax declared by the law in any country, but he thinks paying taxes in the UK was quite comfortable. "I think the most important thing to say about our taxes is that we fully comply with the law and we'll obviously, should the law change, we'll comply with that as well," he added.
Schmidt is proud of the company's corporate structure which is based on "capitalism".
"I am very proud of the structure that we set up," Schmidt said boldly. "We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate. It's called capitalism. We are proudly capitalistic. I'm not confused about this."
Schmidt also expressed his desire to widely introduce Internet in North Korea to connect with the world in a much better way. He visited North Korea earlier this month and described it as the "most isolated country on earth" with a very limited access to the Internet.
"So the average North Korean person is completely cut off from any of the kinds of conversations or knowledge that's going on globally. It's by far the worst such [country]," Schmidt said.
