The first of these myths, according to HMRC, is that the department does ‘sweetheart deals’, which it denies. HMRC cites National Audit Office scrutiny of how it resolves disputes in large and complex enquiries, and says that in such cases, three HMRC commissioners have to approve any proposal for resolving disputes, including one commissioner from an area of the business which is not directly responsible for the enquiry and the tax assurance commissioner, who oversees the process and publishes an annual report on his work.

In the specific instance of the Google enquiry, HMRC says the £130m payment was the result of an investigation which started in 2010, and says the current tax charge that Google took in its accounts increased significantly from 2012, when the company first disclosed that it was under enquiry and made a provision for additional tax.

HMRC also takes issue with commentators who have applied Google’s group profit margin to its sales to UK customers and estimated that Google’s UK corporation tax is equivalent to an effective tax rate of around 3% on the group’s profit’s arising in the UK. The departments says this calculation does not reflect how tax law works and the fact that corporation tax is charged on profits from economic activity in the UK, not UK sales.

The factsheet states: ‘In accordance with our published guidelines on resolving disputes, HMRC has taxed all of Google’s profits chargeable to tax in the UK for the period in question, at the full statutory rate of tax.’

It goes on to say that HMRC is satisfied that its enquiry has secured all the tax that is due in the UK, and also says there is so far no public confirmation that other countries have concluded enquiries with Google, either by agreement or by litigation.

Other myths which HMRC says are incorrect are the idea there is ministerial involvement in its enquiries. The department says it only informed ministers of the outcome of the Google enquiry after it was concluded, and they were only told information that was in the public domain or that Google intended to make public.

HMRC also challenges the claim it did not look into Google’s assertion that its Irish company did not have a permanent establishment in the UK and said the conclusion of its enquiries means that Google is paying the full tax due in law on profits that are chargeable to tax in the UK.

PAC’s session on Thursday is due to hear first from Matt Brittin, president of Google EMEA and Tom Hutchinson, vice president, Google Inc, followed by evidence from Dame Lin Homer, HMRC’s CEO, Jim Harra, HMRC director general business tax, and Edward Troup, HMRC’s tax assurance commissioner.

In a previous report, published in 2012, PAC concluded that international companies were able to exploit national and international tax structures to minimise corporation tax on the economic activity they conducted in the UK, and that HMRC was not taking sufficiently aggressive action to tackle this. It described the evidence it received at the time as ‘unconvincing, and in some cases evasive’.

HMRC’s factsheet says that at any given time it has about two-thirds of the UK’s 800 largest businesses under investigation. While it takes multinationals to tribunal on occasion, HMRC argues the quickest and most cost-effective result for the Exchequer is to end the dispute by getting the company to agree to pay all the tax, interest and penalties owed.  It also states that aggressive tax planning by multinationals and questions about permanent residence are global concerns, which will be addressed by initiatives such as the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project.

The factsheet states: ‘We will be working with the Public Accounts Committee to assure them of the robustness of our process.’

HMRC’s factsheet is here

PAC’s session on corporate tax deals will start at 10am on 11 February and can be viewed online here