Tech giant Google has paid €326 million to Italy to settle an investigation into alleged unpaid taxes, recommending a halt to criminal proceedings.

This was announced by prosecutors in Milan, reports AFP.

Italian authorities had accused Google Ireland Limited of failing to declare and pay taxes on revenue generated in the country between 2015 and 2019. The probe focused in particular on revenue earned from the sale of advertising space.

Under the agreement reached with Google, "the company has proceeded to pay 326 million euros in taxes, fines and interest to resolve the outstanding matter with the Italian tax authorities," the Milan prosecutor's office said in a statement. 

Prosecutors said that as a result, they had filed a request with a judge to dismiss the criminal proceedings against the company. 

The EU has had little success in forcing technology companies to pay higher taxes in Europe, where they have been accused of shifting profits to low-tax economies such as Ireland and Luxembourg.

In one of the most high-profile cases, in 2016 the European Commission ordered Apple to pay Ireland more than a decade's worth of taxes, to the tune of €13 billion, after ruling that a sweetheart deal with the government was illegal.

But EU judges overturned the ruling, saying there was no evidence the company broke the rules. The Commission has since sought to overturn that decision.

The EC is also fighting to overturn another court loss after judges overturned its order that Amazon repay €250 million in taxes to Luxembourg. | BGNES