Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown calls for Burger King boycott over planned Tim Hortons deal

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Faux News

Burger King's pursuit of Canadian donut chain Tim Hortons has cost it the patronage of one U.S. Senator.

Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, released a statement Monday calling on consumers to boycott the home of the Whopper after Burger King announced late Sunday that it was in talks to buy Tim Hortons, creating the world's third-largest fast-food company in the process. As part of the deal, Burger King would relocate its headquarters to Canada, a move that could lower its corporate taxes.

"Burger King’s decision to abandon the United States means consumers should turn to Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers or White Castle sliders," Brown said. "Burger King has always said 'Have it Your Way'; well my way is to support two Ohio companies that haven’t abandoned their country or customers." Wendy's is based in Dublin, Ohio, while White Castle is headquartered in Columbus.

President Barack Obama and Congress have criticized inversions because they mean a loss of tax revenue for the U.S. government.

FULL story at link.

?ve=1&tl=1

June 15, 2011: U.S. Senate Banking Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, listens to a testimony during a hearing on banks and the financial crisis on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 15, 2011. (File/Reuters)


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/26/ohio-sen-sherrod-brown-calls-for-burger-king-boycott-over-mooted-tim-hortons/

[leftyohiolib]

1. already done

[Herself]

2. we need an "app for that" . so we know who dodges taxes

and boycott them ALL!

[rurallib]

17. that is a really good idea. Hope someone picks it up.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

40. Already done:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=880187

[rurallib]

46. thank you!

[Fantastic Anarchist]

50. You're welcome!

I thought it would be a good idea to start my own thread for this app to make more people aware.

You can give it some love here.

Thank you!

[wordpix]

88. nice!

[global1]

24. Let's Make The App Positive And Identify Those Companies That Are Truly American......

How about a "Buy American" App

[ReRe]

32. "You've got to...

... accent-u-ate the positive, elim-i-nate the negative." Buy American. I like it.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

42. Done:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=880187

[Fantastic Anarchist]

41. Something close:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=880187

[Fantastic Anarchist]

39. There is an app (Android) ...

That lists companies social behavior (maybe it includes tax dodging companies, too).

Buycott - Barscanner Vote

Description
Buycott Barcode Scanner helps you vote with your wallet so you fund causes you care about and avoid funding those you disagree with.
Featured as ABC News & Salon.com app of the week. As seen on NBC, FOX, CNBC, MSNBC, and covered by Forbes and Huffington Post.
● HOW IT WORKS ●
✓Join campaigns to help causes you care about and commit to supporting the companies on your side of the issue, while avoiding those that oppose your position.
✓Scan product a product barcode and Buycott will find out what company owns that product (and who owns that company, ad infinitum).
✓Buycott will determine whether you're avoiding or supporting the scanned product.
✓Using this information you can now vote with your wallet
● FEATURES ●
☆ Using the bar code scanner, look up the ownership structure of any product and trace it all the way back to its parent company with our interactive family tree diagram.
☆ Offers a variety of contact data for companies and brands, so you can easily inform them of your decision to support or avoid their products.
☆ Barcode scanner scans all major retail barcodes (UPC-A, UPC-E, EAN8, EAN13, etc).
☆ Super fast barcode scanner ensures you don't spend extra time at the store.
☆ Create your own campaign from buycott.com
☆ Make decisions quickly so you can ultimately vote with your wallet

[ReRe]

54. Have I told you lately that I love you?

Thanks!!!!!

[Fantastic Anarchist]

60. It can never be enough ...

I perfer to hear it more.

[irisblue]

74. love you too!

I just got my first smart phone and I would NEVER have found that app.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

79. I love you, too! :)

All this love! I love it!

[dixiegrrrrl]

59. Also important to let the store manager know what you are boycotting.

Not the checkout people......the manager.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

61. Good point!

Thank you.

[father founding]

3. Welfare Burger Kings

The American way or the highway.

[yellowwoodII]

4. I would boycott them

Except that I care too much about my health to eat them in the first place.
A hamburger company that moves out of the country to avoid paying our taxes?

[Cirque du So-What]

5. I regret to inform Sen. Brown

that I cannot possibly boycott BK any more than I'm already doing. I can, however, try to persuade others to join in boycotting this highly unpatriotic business move.

[Snotcicles]

16. Same here, but will now start boycotting Tim Horton's also, which I use to enjoy. nt

[Cirque du So-What]

21. I've been to Tim Horton's a couple of times

but no more - not until BK drops their plan to s weasel out of paying taxes.

[Snotcicles]

80. +1 me too. nt

[Protalker]

6. This is meat and potato issue.

As always the charge to fight comes from our Buckeye Champion! Go Bucks.

[calimary]

73. Welcome to DU, Protalker!

Glad you're here! Intrigued by your screen name, I must say. Are you in talk radio?

[IDemo]

7. Is it really a boycott if I haven't eaten there in ~25 years?

[LynneSin]

8. Sorry Sentator Brown but can't help you out there with that boycott....

I mean I haven't stepped into a Burger King in about 20 years so I wouldn't be much help with boycotting them!

[knightmaar]

9. I couldn't care less about Burger King.

I mean, that's some pretty shitty food.

But Tim Hortons, my friends? That's a Canadian institution. I don't want it polluted with American grease, thanks.

[Cha]

27. "American grease".. haha. What's a Tim Hortons?

[knightmaar]

78. A chain of Doughnut/Coffee stores

You can't actually travel in Canada without seeing them. Named after a hockey player, naturally.

[Cha]

83. Thanks, knightmaar.. the last time I was in Canada in 2005 in the Novia Scotia area

I think I do remember seeing a Tim Hortons(hockey player).. vaguely.

[Sunlei]

10. McDs must be loving this!

[littlemissmartypants]

18. Lol.nt

[tridim]

11. My digestive system has already boycotted them.

Subway and BK both make me feel sick for 24 hours after. No thanks.

[BlueJazz]

12. I occasionally eat a Whopper but those days are over.

[Sunlei]

29. reveal of pinkslime use, hardly any muscle meat in cheap'beef' ended my fastfood days.

That pink slime, who knows how many thousands of diseased cattle, rejected beef parts, go into the pink slime processed 'beef extender' mixture.

Prion diseases (progressive neurodegenerative disorders) IMO can be introduced way to easy in these processed 'meat' mixtures.

[BlueJazz]

43. Good point. Ah sir...would you like your burger with or without neurodegenerative disorders?

[Thespian2]

13. BurgerKing?

Never eat there..or MacDonald's...or KfC...or Chic-Fil-A. Despise Tim Horton's, whose coffee is actually caffeine, water, and 3 coffee beans per pot. Enough to make me sick. Oh, yes, Wendy's once bought Timmy's. Not a great purchase. Perhaps Tim will put BurgerKing out of business?

[Dont call me Shirley]

14. Burger King, the real Welfare Queen

[laureloak]

15. You will be boycotting franchise owners who pay taxes regardless

of where BK hdqtrs are.

[Omaha Steve]

25. The franchise owners can always take down the Burger King sign

They can makes choices too.

Maybe they become a American Burger franchise. It is a start up for unhappy Burger King owners.

[laureloak]

44. Point is TAXES WILL STILL BE PAID IN US

on food sales regardless of where the corp is located.

[FSogol]

51. You are trying to conflate local sales tax with corporate tax. This is called tax inversion

and consists of paperwork (they don't have to move headquarters) to move their company overseas (in this case, Canada) to avoid paying US taxes.

Question, do you really like Whoppers or are you some sort of Pro-BK activist? You'll been trying to prevent DUers from talking about a boycott, why?

[former9thward]

65. How is the poster "trying to prevent DUers from talking about a boycott" ?

It seems you are trying to shut down any other point of view.

[FSogol]

66. Here you go from a thread yesterday:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014879616#post3

"It seems you are trying to shut down any other point of view" - or , I can't decide which is more appropriate here.

[laureloak]

19. BK Headquarters to remain in Miami

http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/25/4308025/burger-king-in-talks-to-buy-tim.html#

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

20. I am such a fan of Sherrod that I have, in fact, retroactively joined

in his called for boycott as of several decades ago. Coincidentally at the same time I read about 'downed cows' going into the fast food industry intake.

[muntrv]

22. Sorry, Sen. Brown I cannot do that.

I have not eaten at a BK in years.

[Omaha Steve]

28. Remember The Rutles record boycott and burning?

People were buying their records just to burn them. So just support the boycott.

[Enthusiast]

23. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

Let's stand up to these assholes!

Way to go, Senator Brown!

Thank you, Omaha Steve.

[gopiscrap]

26. Good for him!

[d_r]

30. I like TImmie Hortons

but I am not a fan really of burger king.

[riqster]

31. That's my Senator!

[JohnnyRingo]

47. Mine too...

...and what Sherrod or his wonderful wife Connie says carries a lot of weight to me.

Isn't great that we don't have to be ashamed to tell people who our senator is? Even Rob Portman isn't a complete embarassment like Ted Cruz or David Vitter.

[riqster]

56. Compared with the state government, yeah.

Now if we can just get peeps to the polls this November...

[WillyT]

33. Huge K & R !!!

[Peacetrain]

34. K&R.. and even if this turns out to be an idle threat

I will never eat there again for trying to pull a stunt like this off.

[stillwaiting]

35. There have been many reasons to not give Burger King our money prior to this.

For any AMERICAN (and yes conservatives this includes you) that cares about the future of our country and the direction our country continues to go, I believe not rewarding companies that do things that ultimately hurt our country would be a very wise thing to do.

[bulloney]

36. These corporations all want to avoid paying U.S. taxes,

but they don't think twice about using this country's taxpayer-funded infrastructure. They act like it's an entitlement, or it's just there magically.

I've stopped eating at BK years ago after a colleague visited a cattle auction in Australia. She explained that a large herd of sickly steers covered with abscesses was penned up and ready to be shipped to its buyer. When my colleague asked who would buy such a sick herd of cattle, the market official would refuse to answer until she persisted in asking. Finally, he said they were headed to the United States for Burger King.

Another relative who has a friend who is a broker for a pet food company told me they reject meats that are purchased by the likes of Taco Bell and other fast food joints.

I rarely eat at fast food places and my health is better for it.

In short, these corporations run roughshod over us taxpayers, acting like they're entitled to accessing public infrastructure without having to pay for it while they feed us crap, if not poison.

[evilDonkey]

37. Should we boycott Toyota and Honda Too? They're foreign owned.

A Burger King Boycott makes no sense. American's purchase products from foreign owned companies every day.

[bulloney]

38. Are they dodging paying their fair share of taxes? If so, I'm with you.

[SoapBox]

57. Toyota and Honda were never American companies in the first place.

This would be a move to blatantly leave the U.S. Just because of taxes.

[Jazzgirl]

62. ^^^^^This^^^^

Those companies were always foreign owned so no comparison. BK is trying to avoid corporate US taxes.

[evilDonkey]

85. CPAs

The job of every certified public accountant in the United States is to reduce their client's tax burden. Should we boycott them too?

A) Foreign owned companies are fine
B) Legally reducing a tax burden is fine

Burger King did nothing wrong.

[highmindedhavi]

45. Boycott Warren Buffet owned businesess also

He is financing the deal:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101946713

[laureloak]

48. NOT TO WORRY! Taxes will continue to be paid

by franchise owners for food sales.

[FSogol]

53. State and Local Sales Tax does not equal Corporate Tax paid to the Federal Government.

[laureloak]

63. "BKC will continue to pay all of our federal, state and local U.S. taxes." -Burger King FB page

What part of 'federal tax' do you not understand???

[FSogol]

67. Do you not understand what tax inversion is about?

They'll pay a lower rate in Canada. This is a tax avoidance scheme. Boycotters put pressure on the Walgreens' board to prevent them from doing the same thing about a month ago.

[Vinca]

68. That sounds like a "weasel" post.

They will pay all federal taxes that ARE DUE. That could be much less than what they currently pay if they relocate to Canada. If it isn't, why wouldn't they stay in the United States? Canadian businesses can be headquartered in the U.S. so they could still have a merger.

[NYC Liberal]

75. Of course they'll pay all the ones they LEGALLY owe. Which will be a LOT less.

You don't think they're doing this just so they can pay the same taxes as they are now, do you?

[Hell Hath No Fury]

49. Already hit their FB page and left a comment --

on their website. I go there regularly when on the road because they are the only fast food chain to offer a veggie burger. Not any more.

[Not Me]

52. "Burger King 'eh"

Let's rename them.

[laureloak]

55. BK just posted on their FB page

that it was about GROWTH, they will remain in Miami and continue to pay all their federal, state and local taxes.

[SoapBox]

58. Bravo Sherrod...finally a Dem with a spine.

[hughee99]

64. Canada's corporate taxes are lower than the US's? n/t

[Omaha Steve]

69. Yes they are

[hughee99]

70. So their corporate taxes are lower AND their corporations don't have to worry

about paying for health insurance because that comes from the government?

Okay, first, I can see why one might want to move a business to Canada, but more importantly, how come every time they talk about a single payer system in the US, the corporations complain about how much it's going to cost? Apparently, it doesn't break the bank in Canada. Why the heck can't we do that here?

[Omaha Steve]

71. We have a winner

Because they were indoctrinated by Rush etc. all is the correct answer.

You can lead the horse, ...

[candelista]

72. A Brazilian company owns 2/3 of Burger King.

So most of the profits go to Brazil regardless of where the corporate headquarters is located.

This is much ado about not much.

[LanternWaste]

76. Focus is on taxes rather than profits.

Focus is on taxes rather than profits.


"This is much ado about not much..."
For you, possibly,. For others, not so much...

[KansDem]

77. "Have Taxes Your Way"

Capping on the old "Have It Your Way" advertising slogan of BK

Have taxes your way: Why Burger King wants to become a Canadian citizen

Yet another American company is aiming to move its headquarters out of the country.

International fast food behemoth Burger King Worldwide Inc. confirmed Tuesday that it will pay about $11 billion to buy Canadian chain Tim Hortons Inc., which sells coffee, donuts, and other breakfast food fare. The deal would merge America's second-largest burger chain, which is valued at nearly $10 billion, with the Canadian equivalent to Dunkin' Donuts, which is valued at more than $8 billion. It would also move the new company's headquarters to Canada, where corporate taxes are significantly lower.

The newly merged company would become the world's third-biggest "quick service restaurant company," with more than 18,000 restaurants in 100 countries, said Burger King and Hortons in a statement Monday. The deal would create a business capable of rivaling Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, and is valued at more than $30 billion. But while Yum Brands operates from Louisville, KY, the new Burger King and Tim Hortons parent company would likely station itself in the Ontario province of Canada.

On the surface, the reason for a headquarter shift across the country's northern border is simple: lower corporate taxes.

Washington Post

[True Blue Door]

81. Burger King needs a Burger Robespierre.

The fact that what they're planning to do is so petty makes it somehow worse.

[christx30]

82. I know I take every

legal tax deduction I can to save money. I don't see what the big deal is. You don't like it, complain to the politicians. They created the problem.

[madokie]

84. Wish we had a few hundred congress critters like Sen. Brown

Like to see him run for the Presidency,
yes I would

[evilDonkey]

86. Foreign owned companies move to America every day

Foreign owned companies move to America every day for a variety of reasons. Should we boycott them because they are traitorous to their home countries? That would be ridiculous! We are happy to have them.

Some people seem to think we should build a Berlin Wall around America to keep companies and people in.

This whole thing is so dumb.

[Omaha Steve]

87. Why not tax the same rate

In or out of the USA?

[wordpix]

89. I like the sentiment but wish he had pushed farmers' markets, organic food

instead of more crappy greasy salty sugary food, some made from abused, unhealthy animals

[jamzrockz]

90. Burger King gave me my first job

They started this immigrant boy off at $7.60 in 2003 when nobody wanted to hire me, plus they gave me a 50c raise after 6 month on the job. They also have the only cookers that used fire to cook their burgers instead of a hot table and I really like their burgers. I really had a lot of fun working there.

This one is going to be hard one cos of my history with them and the fact that they are the only fast food joint I still go to