Brussels confirms major investigation into McDonald's tax deals
Fast food giant denies any wrongdoing as European commission launches state aid inquiry into suspected sweetheart tax deals in Luxembourg
McDonald’s tax affairs in Luxembourg are to be investigated under the EU’s state aid rules. Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/AP
The European commission has opened a formal state aid investigation into what it believes to be two unlawful sweetheart tax deals that Luxembourg granted to McDonald’s six years ago.
It is examining the tax rulings the grand duchy gave the fast food group in 2009, the year the business shifted its European headquarters out of London.
The fast food group’s Luxembourg company, McDonald’s Europe Franchising Sarl, has paid no corporate tax in the grand duchy since 2009, the commission said. This was despite receiving hundreds of millions of euros in royalty payments from across Europe and Russia for the right to use the brand and associated service. For 2013 alone its profits were more than €250m (£176m).
Analysis Luxembourg tax files: how tiny state rubber-stamped tax avoidance on an industrial scale
Leaked documents show that one of the EU’s smallest states helped multinationals save millions in tax, to the detriment of its neighbours and allies
Read more
Under the terms of its Luxembourg tax ruling, McDonald’s Europe Franchising has not been required to pay tax locally because the grand duchy regards almost all of its profits to have been generated through the Luxembourg company’s US branch.
However, US tax rules offer a different view. Under American rules, the Luxembourg company’s profits should be taxed in Luxembourg, where the company is registered, not at its US branch office. As a result, the profits of McDonald’s Europe Franchising go untaxed by both Luxembourg and the US.
Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s competition commissioner, stated: “A tax ruling that agrees to McDonald’s paying no tax on their European royalties either in Luxembourg or in the US has to be looked at very carefully under EU state aid rules. The purpose of double taxation treaties between countries is to avoid double taxation – not to justify double non-taxation.”
Untaxed, or “stateless”, profits are considered the holy grail for international tax planners who specialise in creating complex cross-border corporate structures for multinationals. The structures are designed to exploit differences between different countries’ tax codes such that earnings can escape without being taxed.