Google Pays Full Tax in Israel to Export Intellectual Property of Waze

Google has agreed to pay the Israeli Government a further ILS800 million (US$230m) in taxes for the right to export the intellectual property rights of Waze, the crowd-sourced navigation app it purchased in June 2013.

The addition brings total tax revenues on the US$966 million deal to ILS1.3 billion (US$373m), the second largest tax sum Israel has ever received from a merger or acquisition.

The high taxes on the Google-Waze deal result both from its scale, and from Google’s recording of almost the full amount as intellectual property, which Israel taxes at a 25% rate. The additional tax liability stems ...