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EU: McDonald’s faces potential €1 billion tax avoidance probe

By  |  May 5, 2015

EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said she is looking into trade union allegations that the restaurant chain avoided paying more than €1bn in corporate taxes between 2009 and 2013.

Unions claim McDonald’s diverted nearly €4bn of revenues into a Luxembourg subsidiary staffed by 13 people. McDonald’s has rejected the claims.

Ms Vestager said her office is “looking into the information gained by trade unions when it comes to McDonald’s in order to assess if there is a case.”

The EU has been cracking down on what it sees as aggressive tax avoidance by multinational companies, last year opening investigations into Apple in Ireland, Starbucks in the Netherlands, and Amazon in Luxembourg.

 

Full content: The Economic Times

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