Vodafone's £320m-a-year Irish office with no staff: Telecoms giant in multi-million pound tax deal with HMRC Vodafone took advantage of the generous corporate tax rate in Ireland Had £324m annual turnover collecting royalty payments for brand use Its Irish subsidiary in Dublin employed no staff between 2002 and 2007 The company made huge settlement in England in wake of tax dispute By Sandra Murphy and Mark Duell Vodafone has made a multi-million pound settlement with HM Revenue & Customs in the wake of a dispute over the tax it had paid in Britain, it emerged last night. The information was revealed after it was reported that the company ran an Irish subsidiary from a satellite office in Dublin for tax purposes. Employing no staff for five years, the telecoms giant took advantage of Ireland's generous corporate tax rate to record a £324million annual turnover collecting royalty payments for the use of its brand. Telecoms giant: Employing no staff for five years, Vodafone took advantage of Ireland's generous corporate tax rate to record a £324million annual turnover collecting royalty payments for the use of its brand The UK-based group used the Irish subsidiary, which employed no staff between 2002 and 2007, to collect royalty payments from operating companies and joint ventures around the world. During a four-year period, it emerged these royalty payments helped Vodafone Ireland Marketing Ltd send more than £850million worth of dividends to the low-tax jurisdiction of Luxembourg from their Dublin base. The dividends, which include a final payment of £121million due to be delivered this year, came from profits made after taking advantage of Ireland's tax rates. The disclosure comes as the British mobile phone group came under fire for its minimal corporation tax payments in the UK. It also emerged that it is the largest supplier of mobile phones to the UK government, with more than 30 departments and public bodies, including the prime minister's office, having contracts worth £14million a year with Vodafone. The Guardian newspaper reported that the accountancy structure struck by the multinational was similar to the one used by Apple in Ireland. Comparison: It was reported that the accountancy structure struck by the multinational was similar to the one used by Apple in Ireland The website reported that Vodafone moved senior marketing managers to Dublin to protect global royalty revenues from UK taxation, and trigger a lower Irish corporation tax bill from 25 per cent to 12.5 per cent of profits. This was significantly lower than the UK rate, which was 28 per cent of profits between 2008 and 2010. A series of lively hearings of the Public Accounts Committee saw MPs savage companies such as Google for aggressively avoiding tax by exploiting legal loopholes. Recently released figures show Google paid a paltry £10.6million in tax between 2006 and 2011 on revenue of £12 billion in the UK. The firm's boss Eric Schmidt appeared before the Committee in May, where chairman Margaret Hodge branded Google "devious," "unethical" and "evil." And Starbucks was revealed to have paid nothing in corporation tax in the last three years despite sales of £400million in 2011 and had only paid £8.6million since it began trading in the UK 14 years ago. Accounts filed in Dublin show that in 2009, the British taxman settled a dispute with Vodafone over its Irish tax returns, the website reported yesterday. The overall size of the settlement has not been revealed, but it involved Vodafone reclaiming £57million from the Irish Government in tax that should have been paid in the UK, it reports. Vodafone, the world's second largest mobile phone company by revenue, has paid no corporation tax in Britain for two successive years, despite paying £2.6billion in international taxes in 2012. The company confirmed to the Guardian that its settlement had never been separately disclosed in its annual reports, and was not connected to a £1.25billion payment to the British revenue in 2010, to settle a much-publicised dispute over the use of a Luxembourg subsidiary. A spokesman for HMRC refused to confirm whether any settlement over Vodafone's Irish tax affairs had been made, saying it was prevented by law from discussing the affairs of individual taxpayers. Vodafone strongly rejected any suggestion of tax avoidance and said there have been no allegations of wrongdoing. The company said its disputes with the UK taxman over its tax arrangements in Ireland and Luxembourg would not block it from government contracts under current rules. A spokesman for Vodafone Ireland last night told the Irish Daily Mail she had "no comment to make." The matter concerns the tax issue of the Vodafone Group, which is a separate company for revenue and reporting structures.