Inside Google's UK offices: huge but don't call them 'permanent establishments'

How can a company with so many employees in such lovely and expansive offices not have a permanent establishment? It's really very simple "

Google's decision to finally pay a one-off 130m settlement to HMRC, settling a long-running argument about its astonishingly low UK corporation tax bill, was hailed as a "major success" by the chancellor, George Osborne.

But the settlement has come under much criticism, not least as it relies on buying Google's claim that its presence in Britain is minimal. The US tech giant says its presence is limited largely to an advertising arm and a small localisation wing, doing things such as changing $ to and adding in the letter "u" every time someone writes "color".