Tax bills could be compiled using Google

The taxman could soon be totting up the nation's bills on software supplied by Google after the internet giant signed a landmark deal with the IT services supplier to HM Revenue & Customs.

Today Google will unveil a partnership with Capgemini, under which the IT services group will add the internet giant's word processing, spreadsheet and e-mail tools to the portfolio of software applications it offers its clients.

The move comes as Google radically ramps up its rivalry with Microsoft, which has long dominated the desktop market with its Office portfolio of products, which includes the stalwarts Word and Excel.

Google unveiled a paid-for collection of rival software tools in February, offering businesses a bundle of web-based services, accessible over the internet, services for $50 (£25) a year per user. Since then it has said that the product has been signing up more than 1,000 small businesses a day and has been adopted by more than 100,000 firms.

It is still dwarfed by Microsoft Office, however, which has about 240 million users, and Google executives have admitted that their system faces resistance from larger companies concerned over issues such as security.

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