That's a business-to-business transaction, there wouldn't be any tax on it even if both companies were in the UK.
There would be taxes on the profits of a UK company, which IMO is the wrong way to go about it; just tax the income made by UK investors who own shares in a company (wherever that company happens to be based). The money can bounce around through as many shell companies as you like, but at some point it becomes an individual's income; tax it there.
We have corporation tax as well as income tax for a reason.
I'm no accountant or tax lawyer, but it's obvious Google are playing games with the UK. According to their own filings, they made $4bn from UK sales in the last financial year.
The representative yesterday shrugged it off and tried to make out all Google do in the UK is have a bunch of promotions/localization staff. They (Google UK Ltd) receive all their income from Google in Ireland, and end up reporting a loss, meaning they pay a nominal amount of tax to the UK tax authorities.
$4bn in sales from the UK market and they pay UK tax authorities around $5mn in tax.
That's why people are angry, and that's why their representative was getting laid into by MPs yesterday.
There would be taxes on the profits of a UK company, which IMO is the wrong way to go about it; just tax the income made by UK investors who own shares in a company (wherever that company happens to be based). The money can bounce around through as many shell companies as you like, but at some point it becomes an individual's income; tax it there.