Google, Starbucks, Ikea and the Rolling Stones haved all refused to attend a parliamentary hearing in the Netherlands on tax evasion.

Members of the Dutch parliament had invited the four to explain their tax arrangements in the Netherlands, which have courted worldwide negative publicity.

A Dutch Green Party spokesman confirmed all four refused to attend.

Jesse Klaver, a member of Parliament for the Greens said: 'The refusal of these companies to come to Parliament is exemplary for the way these companies work: they don't feel they are in any way accountable to the societies they sell their products to. They use the Dutch fiscal infrastructure resulting in huge profits, but they refuse to answer to questions of representatives of the Dutch people.'

After the companies and the rock group declined to attend the meeting on September 12, the hearing will will go ahead with MPs, academics and NGO's.

Klaver added: 'Dutch citizens pay on average 39% taxes, but companies like Google sometimes pay as less a 2% tax over their profits. That is not fair. My expectation is that the refusal of Google, Starbucks and the Rolling Stones will only increase the criticism of these methods used by companies to avoid taxes and of the Dutch tax system that makes these methods possible.'

Starbucks and Google both attended hearings before British MPs in November, while Apple, Microsoft and HP attended similar hearings before the US Senate.