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Last week Google was branded "devious," "calculating" and "unethical," as furious MPs stepped up pressure on the internet giant over its efforts to shelter its multi-billion profits from UK taxes.

The internet giant denied trying to "disguise" the way its business operated to minimise its tax bill in the UK.

Google UK boss Matt Brittin insisted he stood by evidence he gave last year that all the firm's advertising in Europe was sold through its offices in Ireland.

Read more: Google 'devious over tax bill'

Committee chairman Margaret Hodge said his claims were contradicted by documentation MPs had seen and evidence from a "stream" of whistleblowers.

Mr Brittin said the evidence related to the period before he joined the company six and half years ago and that suggestions that Google was trying to "disguise" the way it operated were "just not true".

"I stand by what I said. I described very clearly how we operate," he said.

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After questioning Apple CEO Tim Cook in a congressional hearing into their tax affairs, Senator John McCain said he was sorry they had run out of time as he had been meaning to ask a question that seemed to have been troubling him. As the hearing ended he said:

"What I really wanted to ask is why the hell I have to keep updating the apps on my iPhone all the time and why you don't fix that?"

Cook responded the company was "trying to make them better all the time."

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The Irish government have denied the country operated as a "tax haven" for global technology giant Apple. Ireland's deputy prime minister Eamon Gilmore told national broadcaster RTE:

"They are issues that arise from the taxation systems in other jurisdictions, and that is an issue that has to be addressed first of all in those jurisdictions."

His comments come after the US Congress released a 40-page document cataloguing possible reasons the group paid just 1.9% tax on its $37 billion overseas profits in 2012.

The report said: "Ireland has essentially functioned as a tax haven for Apple."

US Senate questions Apple's 'tax loopholes'

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Labour leader Ed Miliband has condemned internet giant Google for their efforts to avoid paying tax in the UK. In a blog on The Huffington Post UK he wrote of the responsibility of new online companies to stand up for the values they appear to espouse:

At the same time as the internet breaks down old hierarchies, it can also create new vested interests. And, even as the internet connects people across the world, footloose companies can use the global market to avoid facing up to their responsibilities.

Google is said to have paid only £10million in corporation tax in the UK between 2006 and 2011, despite revenues of £11.9billion.

Again, it is not just the right thing to do, it is essential for a prosperous country.

Google shouldn’t be going to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying its taxes. It has an obligation to do more than simply comply with the letter of the law.

Google has done much to open up markets and opportunities for entrepreneurs. It has done some great things for the world.

But it also has an obligation to wider society and to live up to its own foundingprinciples.

Read: Google 'devious, calculating and unethical over tax bill'

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• Ed Miliband

Google was branded "devious," "calculating" and "unethical," as furious MPs stepped up pressure on the internet giant over its efforts to shelter its multi-billion profits from UK taxes.

MPs from the Public Accounts Committee quizzed the company's UK boss Matt Brittin as to why he has sales staff in the UK while registering profits from sales deals in Ireland - where tax is 10 percent lower.

ITV News Business Editor Laura Kuenssberg reports:

Read: Laura Kuenssberg's blog: 'Call a spade a spade' - Google under attack

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A tax expert tells me the Public Accounts Committee has become a "dangerous kangaroo court". He says Margaret Hodge risks "undermining rule of law".

He adds the committee is "out of control" and Margaret Hodge is displaying double standards.

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Labour leader Ed Miliband has tweeted that Google's failure to pay tax shows a culture of "corporate irresponsibility" which is "totally unacceptable".

Google going to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying tax shows a culture of corporate irresponsibility which is totally unacceptable.

From @Ed_Miliband on Twitter: ( 3:07 pm, Thu 16 May 2013)

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What we are seeing is a company that is saying one thing and doing another. This is the story of large companies these days.

We're asked to trust these companies but they give us no reason to do so.

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Business Secretary Vince Cable has told Channel 5 News that public outrage at Google and Amazon over tax is “absolutely justified”.

Cable said: "Particularly if you are a small company which can’t relocate overseas and has to pay a lot of tax, I can understand why people are absolutely furious and they’re looking for us in government, quite rightly, to close any loopholes."

He added: “Google, Amazon and some of these other companies are not actually acting illegally, they’re not engaged in illegal tax evasion, but what they are doing is using every opportunity they get to avoid paying tax, so there is an issue about ethical behaviour.”

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Robert Oxley, Campaign Manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance has told ITV News that politicians "should be reforming the system instead of moralising about tax."

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