Google advertising in Australia amounted to $1.804 billion in revenue last year and is expected to top the $2 billion mark in 2014, according to consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The multinational corporation’s creative tax strategy saw Google Australia “pay” just $7.1 million in tax last financial year, 15 per cent of a $46.5 million pre-tax profit.
But according to a revealing Sydney Morning Herald report, Google paid just $295,727 in tax in 2013, assisted by the company’s tax minimisation strategies which distinguish the differences between ‘profits “from Australia” and profits made “in” Australia’.
Search engine advertising business customers, estimated at $2 billion in revenue, are billed out of Singapore with money then moving to Google headquarters in Ireland, both of which possess lower tax jurisdictions than Australia.
Google announced last week a move to bring back Brand Labs customer experience workshops to Australia in an attempt to further strengthen its creative content and advertising position, a tool used to prove to brands and agencies that the company can be more than simply a platform for SEO and digital advertising.
“Google’s YouTube is a dominant player in Australia,” the PwC report states. “The proportion of YouTube videos with advertising has increased to almost a quarter.”
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