Burger King, And Only Burger King, Wants To Be Canadian

Burger King Worldwide Inc., a chain of over 13,000 sad, ignored, tumbleweed-strewn burger graveyards in 79 countries around the world, has agreed to fork over around $11 billion to purchase Canadian donuts-and-breakfast chain Tim Hortons Inc., giving the new combined company ownership of exactly one brand that isn't associated with the vaguely sorrowful feeling of occasionally remembering that it exists.

Another thing the merger will do is give this new corporate entity a new headquarters, in Oakville, Ontario. This is no accident: As explained by Roberto Ferdman in The Washington Post, by changing its corporate citizenship from the United States to Canada, Burger King can take advantage of the lower nominal corporate tax rate in the frozen north, where it's around 26 percent, compared to 39.1 percent here in the U.S.

Which, hey, whatever: Notionally American corporations doing everything in their power to avoid their tax responsibilities, quite frankly, is much more familiar at this point than any of the items on Burger King's dusty, cobwebbed menu screens. For my money, the funniest part of Ferdman's otherwise very sharp and informative analysis of this business transaction is the notion that Burger King's abandonment of its native soil for the figuratively warmer tax climes of the not-figuratively arctic wilderness of Canada "might not sit so well with some consumers." Ha! Which ones? Who the fuck goes to Burger King?

Before you answer "Why, spiteful pie-hoarding reddit choads, of course," know this: That dude was Canadian. Literally no Americans have been inside a Burger King in like 25 years. Burger King franchises in the United States don't even have real doors. Their doors are just spray-painted onto the cinderblock walls! The fry cooks have to enter and exit through the fryer ventilation chimney.

[Pictured above: a Burger King during the lunch rush.]

In any case, now that Burger King is emigrating its fictional corporate personhood to the land of moose and hockey, it'll probably have to make some adaptations to the native customs of the Canadian people: serving burgers in sensible flannel wrappers; changing the slogan to "Have It Your Way, But Only If You Want To"; bragging good-naturedly about its terrific health care; changing the brand name to Burger Queen Elizabeth II; and someday, years from now, when it's well established in Canada and ready to challenge itself to be great, immigrating to America.

[ CBC.ca] [ Washington Post]

Photo via Hieronymus / Shutterstock.com