Firm criticised for tax inversion deal

Fast food chain Burger King will avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in US taxes if, as planned, it completes its pending buyout of Canadian coffee-and-doughnuts chain Tim Hortons, a tax activist group said.

In one of the most notable of several corporate tax “inversion” deals this year, Florida-based Burger King announced in late August it would buy Tim Hortons and put the headquarters of the combined company in Canada.

US companies doing inversions — which involve buying a foreign company and assuming its tax nationality to cut overall tax costs — have been blasted as tax dodgers by Democrats and liberal groups. President Barack Obama has criticised a “herd mentality” by companies seeking deals to escape US taxes.