People are silhouetted as they pose with laptops in front of a screen projected with a Google logo, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica October 29, 2014.
A woman holds her smart phone which displays the Google home page, in this picture illustration taken February 24, 2016.
A Google carpet is seen at the entrance of the new headquarters of Google France before its official inauguration in Paris, France December 6, 2011.
PARIS French investigators raided Google's (GOOGL.O) Paris headquarters on Tuesday as part of a tax evasion inquiry, the financial prosecutor's office said.
Google said it was fully complying with French law.
Facing public anger at the way multinational companies use their footprints around the world to minimize tax, France, Britain and others have sought ways to make sure Google, Yahoo! and other digital giants, who often have their tax bases in other countries, pay their taxes locally.
Investigators from the financial prosecutors office and France's central office against corruption and tax fraud, accompanied by 25 IT specialists, took part in the raid.
"The investigation aims to verify whether Google Ireland Ltd has a permanent base in France and if, by not declaring parts of its activities carried out in France, it failed its fiscal obligations, including on corporate tax and value added tax," the prosecutor's office said in statement.
Google has based its regional headquarters in Dublin where corporate tax rates are lower than elsewhere in Europe.
The company, now part of Alphabet Inc, has been under pressure in recent years over its practice of channeling most profits from European clients through Ireland to Bermuda, where it pays no tax on them.
The raid was carried out as part of an investigation that started in June last year.
"We are cooperating with the authorities to answer their questions," Al Verney, a spokesman for Google in Europe, said in an email. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt approached for a reaction at a conference in Amsterdam, declined to comment.
Investigators started their investigation of Google's offices in central Paris at 5 A.M., a source close to the finance ministry said.
France is seeking some 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in back taxes from U.S. Internet giant Google, criticized for its use of aggressive tax optimization techniques, another finance ministry source had said in February.
Google had agreed in January to pay 130 million pounds in back taxes to Britain, prompting criticism from opposition lawmakers and campaigners.
($1 = 0.8945 euros)
(Reporting by Michel Rose, Ingrid Melander, Mathieu Rosemain and Gwenaelle Brazic; additional reporting by Svebor Kranjc in Amsterdam; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Andrew Callus and Ralph Boulton)
Dezenas de investigadores fiscais invadiram os escritórios da   na capital de  ontem (24) como parte de uma investigação sobre suposta evasão fiscal da empresa.

O ataque foi conduzido por investigadores do escritório do promotor financeiro estatal assistidos por 25 especialistas de Técnicos da Informação (TI), de acordo com autoridades. "A investigação tem como objetivo verificar se o Google Ireland Ltd. tem uma base permanente na " a promotoria disse, "e se, ao não declarar partes de suas atividades realizadas na França, que falharam as suas obrigações fiscais ...".

Google, uma subsidiária do Alphabet Inc., relata a maior parte de suas vendas na .  afirma a maioria dos contratos de venda são fechados em seus escritórios de . Se a investigação encontra vendas estão sendo concluídos em outros países, o Google pode ter de pagar impostos adicionais nesses países.

Em 2014 o Google reportou uma receita total anual da França de € 225,4 milhões de euros, com um lucro de apenas € 12,2 milhões, pagando apenas € 5 milhões em imposto sobre as sociedades de acordo com . Um porta-voz do Google disse que a empresa está cooperando com as autoridades francesas e em plena conformidade com a legislação francesa.

De acordo com a , uma fonte do Ministério das Finanças francês disse que as autoridades fiscais francesas também estão buscando separadamente Google para € 1,6 bilhões em impostos atrasados.