Brussels (dpa) - The European Union launched an investigation Thursday into a tax scheme granted in Luxembourg to fast food giant McDonald‘s, the fourth US multinational to land under Brussels scrutiny for suspected tax-dodging.Both McDonald‘s and Luxembourg denied any wrongdoing, however.The company said in a statement that it "complies with all tax laws and rules in Europe" and paid more than 2 billion dollars in corporate taxes in the EU from 2010 to 2014."We are subject to the same tax laws as other companies and are confident that the inquiry will be resolved favourably," the statement said.The Luxembourg Finance Ministry also argued that "no special tax treatment nor selective advantage have been granted to McDonald‘s.""Luxembourg will fully cooperate with the [European] Commission in the investigation," it said in a statement.At issue are two tax rulings that Luxembourg granted to McDonald‘s in 2009. Such rulings are commonly used to provide companies clarity on how their taxes will be calculated.Taxation is usually a national issue in the 28-country EU, but the commission believes it can intervene in these cases because the tax arrangements constitute state aid, an area it regulates."A tax ruling that agrees to McDonald‘s paying no tax on their European royalties either in Luxembourg or in the United States has to be looked at very carefully under EU state aid rules," EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.If the tax scheme is found to have violated the bloc‘s strict competition laws, the EU‘s executive could order Luxembourg to recoup the illegal tax advantages from McDonald‘s.The commission has already used this approach against Starbucks, with Netherlands ordered in October to have the US coffee retailer repay 20 million to 30 million euros (21 million to 32 million dollars).In the McDonald‘s case, the commission suspects that derogations from Luxembourg tax law and a US-Luxembourg double taxation agreement may have given the company "an advantage not available to other companies in a comparable factual and legal situation."McDonald‘s Europe Franchising has "virtually not paid any corporate tax in Luxembourg [or] in the US" since 2009 despite royalty-derived profits that in 2013 amounted to more than 250 million euros, the commission said.A group of trade unions had in February accused McDonald‘s of deliberately avoided paying more than 1 billion euros in European corporate taxes.The EU has moved to crack down on corporate tax avoidance in the wake of the so-called LuxLeaks scandal, in which a journalism consortium reported that Luxembourg had helped multinational companies dodge billions of euros in taxes.The commission has also launched investigations into tax regimes granted by Ireland to US technology giant Apple and by Luxembourg to US online retailer Amazon.But commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said "any suggestion that we are specifically targeting US companies is unfounded and untrue.""EU competition rules, including state aid rules, apply to all companies that operate in the single market," he told journalists in Brussels. "If you want to operate in the EU, you are subject to ... EU competition rules and that‘s what ensures that you can compete on a level playing field."
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