Yesterday, in a $1.8 billion deal, the Canada-based fast food company Restaurant Brands International (RBI), acquired Popeyes, one of the largest chicken fast-food chains in America. The deal is expected to close in April.

“With this transaction, RBI is adding a brand that has a distinctive position within a compelling segment and strong U.S. and international prospects for growth,” RBI CEO Daniel Shwartz said in a statement. “As Popeyes becomes part of the RBI family we believe we can deliver growth and opportunities for all of our stakeholders including our valued employees and franchisees.”

This acquisition makes Popeyes part of the RBI “Family of Brands” that includes Burger King as well as the Canadian coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons. RBI is majority-owned by the Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital and was formed in 2014 after the Burger King and Tim Hortons merger. Since the merger, Burger King has expanded around the world with much success.

The deal seems to be good news for Popeyes investors and shareholders. Since news of the deal emerged, Popeyes stock has been soaring, according to Business Insider.

While the deal is being applauded as a good business call by RBI, some people are calling foul, bringing up the fact that RBI has been a prominent perpetrator of tax inversion, which will become even more significant now that RBI is making strides toward becoming one of the largest fast food companies in the world.

Tax inversion is a way for companies to dodge American corporate tax by rerouting their revenue to a so-called “tax haven.” In the Canadian-based RBI’s case, the Burger King merger with Tim Hortons allowed for Burger King’s revenue to be taxed at the Canadian corporate tax rate rather than the American one, which, according to CNN Money, was projected to save Burger King shareholders over $800 million in capital gains taxes and the company itself about $400 million in corporate tax.

Projected tax savings for Popeyes have not been reported yet, but, according to ThinkProgress’ Alan Pyke, being a smaller firm, Popeyes’ tax savings are probably going to be much smaller than Burger King’s. However, with the new Trump Administration, questions about tax/corporate inversion have been growing, as the administration is expected to take a much different approach towards quelling its effects than the Obama Administration did.

Per ThinkProgress’ Alan Pyke:

Inversions were all the rage in corporate management in the second term of the Obama administration, which sought to curb them through new Treasury Department rules. The bankers who helped complete those deals raked in close to a billion dollars in fees for their assistance.

Republicans in Congress are widely expected to gut the Obama-era restrictions on inversions. President Donald Trump’s administration has signaled it would prefer to slash the U.S. corporate tax rate rather than combat corporate tax avoidance through regulation — even though rates are not what drive American-made companies to pretend they live somewhere else.

Pyke cites a report from Reuters that looked at six companies that were known to have completed or were in the process of completing “inversion-type” deals. The report finds that, while the U.S. corporate tax rate is high, many large companies use elaborate strategies to cut tax costs, which reduce the effects of the country’s 35 percent statutory rate and allow companies to pay well below the actual rate. These elaborate loop holes within the U.S. tax code suggest that companies may be practicing tax inversion for a variety of incentives offered abroad, which shows that “Washington’s current debate over business tax reform may be too focused on the statutory rate, neglecting effective rates and the incentives that companies have to shift profits abroad.”

As Pyke points out, President Donald Trump and many other Republicans still prefer to slash corporate taxes to stop companies from making tax inversion deals. Trump has frequently stated that he will lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent.

On the Bloomberg Politics show “With All Due Respect” in November 2015, Trump said that “other candidates don’t even know what corporate inversion is. I do know, I really know,” Trump said. “You are going to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs to other countries because of corporate inversions. What you are going to do is lower the taxes bring the money in and they are going to use that money to build and do things in the United States.”

Austin Elias-De Jesus

Austin is an editorial intern at Law Street Media. He is a junior at The George Washington University majoring in Political Communication. You can usually find him reading somewhere. If you can’t find him reading, he’s probably taking a walk. Contact Austin at Staff@Lawstreetmedia.com.

The post Chicken With a Side of Tax Inversion?: A Look at the Popeyes Sale appeared first on Law Street.

Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce

Special orders don’t upset us.

All we ask is that you let you let us

Serve it your way.*

Courtesy of memecenter.

(*Unless your way involves hot onion rings. In which case, all bets are off.)

I hate when I order food and don’t get exactly what I want. When my order gets messed up, though, I will complain about it relentlessly to everyone I am with and possibly later that night to people I call for the sole purpose of complaining, but I rarely actually go back and say something to the waitress or server. People get onto me for this, and tell me to ‘just say something; you’re paying to get what you want, not what they serve you; it’s not a big deal to let them know; they don’t care; it won’t upset them, etc.’ Previously, I had no excuses for my cowardly behavior, but previously, I had not heard the story of the cold onion rings. And that story justifies every time I’ve ever not complained about my order. Which makes it a pretty good story.

One day, Robert Deyapp walked into a New Mexico Burger King for what, I assume, he assumed was a normal trip to a fast food chain. He placed his order and excitedly went to eat his lunch. To his horror, he quickly discovered that his onion rings were cold. This was unacceptable! He did what anybody unhappy with their purchase would do (except, of course, for me) and went to the counter to ask for hot onion rings.

At the counter things did get heated, but unfortunately for Deyapp, none of those things were the onion rings. When he complained to manager Francisco Berrera and asked for a refund, instead of a simple “I’m sorry, sir, let us take care of that for you,” Berrera took a different approach. He lunged across the counter and attacked Deyapp with a stungun and switchblade.

As you probably know, BK’s motto used to be “Have it your way.” That has since been changed, most recently to “Be your way,” which is perhaps Berrera’s best defense: he was trying to be a solid example of the Burger King message, and since he seems to be a quick-tempered, violent man, he was “being his way” when he beat up a customer. Surely BK would have to respect that, right?

Despite his solitary pursuit to be a good BK representative, Berrera later pled no contest to aggravated assault, and Deyapp is currently suing the burger franchise. Because it is pending litigation, Burger King has not publicly responded to any questions on this matter; however, I have a couple of theories as to what happened in New Mexico that fated day that would show the burger franchise was not breaking any of its promises.

Courtesy of Giphy.

1. Going back to that same jingle at the top that BK was known for, it is pretty clear that the lyrics say “special orders don’t upset us.” Hot onion rings are a regular order. Burger King never suggests that regular orders don’t upset them. If you place a regular order, then, it is fair to say that by doing so, you are leaving yourself open to an attack.
2. Have you heard about secret menus? They are all the rage. You can order specials that aren’t on the menu by finding out about them online. At McDonalds, you could order a McGangbang: a double cheeseburger and a spicy chicken sandwich, which you would then combine with the chicken in between the two patties, a.k.a., the McGangbang. Perhaps at Burger King a secret menu item just happens to be called the “My onion rings are cold,” and is code for “please attak me with a stun gun and switchblade.” In which case, Deyapp was literally asking for it. That’s the problem with those secret menus, though, you always risk the chance that somebody might order something on accident and then you’ll get sued because they were attacked without consent. Trends today!

Whatever the reason for the attack, I am using it as proof to my loved ones that you should never complain about your food. Unless, of course, Deyapp wins a whole lot. In which case, I will complain so much at so many restaurants that people will be dying to hit me. I can take a punch for a big cash payout.

—

Ashley Shaw (@Smoldering_Ashes) is an Alabama native and current New Jersey resident. A graduate of both Kennesaw State University and Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, she spends her free time reading, writing, boxing, horseback riding, playing trivia, flying helicopters, playing sports, and a whole lot else. So maybe she has too much spare time.

Featured image courtesy of [Phillip Wong via Flckr]

Ashley Shaw

Ashley Shaw is an Alabama native and current New Jersey resident. A graduate of both Kennesaw State University and Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, she spends her free time reading, writing, boxing, horseback riding, playing trivia, flying helicopters, playing sports, and a whole lot else. So maybe she has too much spare time. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Spar Broiled: Cold Burger King Onion Rings Lead to Attack and Lawsuit appeared first on Law Street.