Ed Miliband will take on Google over claims of tax avoidance by the tech giant when he appears at a major conference the firm is holding today.
The Labour leader is to insist the corporation should not be going to "extraordinary lengths" to avoid paying taxes, quoting its founding principle: "Don't be evil."
Mr Miliband is understood to be keen to hold talks with chief executive Eric Schmidt, who last week came under fire from MPs over the firm's efforts to shelter its multi-billion pound profits from UK taxes, at the Google Big Tent event in Hertfordshire. However, no arrangements are in place.
In a blog for Huffington Post UK yesterday, Mr Miliband criticised Prime Minister David Cameron for failing to raise tax issues with Mr Schmidt at a meeting in Downing Street.
The Opposition leader will welcome Google's call for international tax reform today, saying the G8 must take steps next month.
"But the right laws must also be accompanied by the responsibility of firms," he will add.
"Your employees want a culture where they feel they are doing the right thing. Your customers want it too.
"Our economy needs proper tax revenues to pay down the deficit and fund the services upon which we all rely. Our society depends on the right messages being sent out from the top. And the reputation of business depends on the most prominent businesses doing the right thing."
Highlighting reports that Google paid only £10 million in corporation tax in the UK between 2006 and 2011, despite revenues of £11.9 billion, Mr Miliband will say: "I can't be the only person here who feels disappointed that such a great company as Google, with such great founding principles, would be reduced to arguing that when it employs thousands of people in Britain, makes billions of pounds of revenue in Britain, (it should pay) just a fraction of that in tax.
"So when Google does great things for the world, as it does, I applaud you.
"And when Google goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying its taxes, I think it's wrong."
Mr Miliband will stress Labour's pledge to write new rules to tackle corporate tax if he wins the next election and will also outline plans to act on limiting anti-competitive practices.
