LONDON (AP) — A British parliamentary committee has grilled Google's head of European operations, questioning in blunt terms whether the Internet giant had paid its fair share of taxes.

The hearing Thursday comes amid public anger over a tax settlement the company made with U.K. authorities. Public Accounts Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier captured the mood when she accused Google's Matt Brittin of having "tin ears," to the complaints about the 130 million pound ($186 million) deal for back taxes in Britain.

Brittan insisted he did understand public anger, and said Google had paid taxes at 20 percent like other companies.

But he invoked Hillier's fury when he said he didn't know his own pay package.

"You don't know what you get paid? ... Out there, taxpayers, our constituents, are very angry, they live in a different world clearly to the world you live in, if you can't even tell us what you are paid," Hillier countered.

She said it was a "PR disaster" for Google to announce its tax deal just as British people were doing their tax returns and "sweating over a little bit of bank interest and getting it in on time."

The session tapped into a public zeitgeist of fury over multinational corporations that operate in Britain but have tax bases elsewhere. Britain is revising its international tax rules.

It's also a reflection of the explosion of tech companies. Brittin said Google's workforce in Britain had grown from 160 to more than 4,000 over the 10-year period covered by the settlement. Some 5,000-plus are employed in Ireland.

He insisted the figure came at the end of a tax audit that took six years to complete and that no "deal" had been struck with Treasury chief George Osborne, who had described the settlement as a "victory" for the government.

The announcement, Brittin said, had occurred because the settlement would soon be made public in the company's accounts.

"Some of the characterization in the time since has suggested some kind of a deal," he said. "I want to be very clear — this is the result of an independent process and it's the amount of tax we were required to pay. It's not a deal and there's been no political involvement."