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Wednesday, August 27th, 2014

Burger King Faces US Tax Backlash On Takeover

Author:    
Source:     Sky News HD
Publication Date:     7:43am UK, Tuesday 26 August 2014
 Link: Burger King Faces US Tax Backlash On Takeover
Stephan:   For more than a decade I have been writing about what I see as the greatest geopolitical trend in the 21st century, the rise of the Virtual Corporate state, large multinational corporations which function essentially as states, without geographical sovereignty borders. States which no longer consider themselves to have any allegiance to a nation state. One of the aspects of this trend is Tax Inversion, corporations moving their legal residency to nations with more advantageous tax structures. Here is the latest example -- Burger King. It is my recommendation that the citizen response to this trend is simply to stop buying the products or services of those corporations. Don't patronize Burger King, it is as simple as that.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Burger King’s plans to buy a Canadian coffee and doughnut chain and shift its tax base there have been met with boycott threats among some US customers.

While investors in both Burger King and Tim Hortons showed great appetite for the deal – with shares in both firms rising more than 20% on Monday – some of the burger chain’s US customers found the so-called tax inversion aspect – the shifting of a firm’s tax base to another country – hard to swallow.

While a tie-up would create the world’s third-largest fast food restaurant firm with 18,000 restaurants in 100 countries and about $22bn in sales, it would also significantly cut Burger King’s tax burden.

A recent report by KPMG found that total tax costs in Canada are 46.4% lower than in the United States.

President Barack Obama and Congress have criticised inversions because they mean a loss of tax revenue for the US government.
Burger King Facebook Page Facebook users took to Burger King’s page to vent their fury

White House spokesman Josh Earnest wouldn’t comment […]

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