State aid: No selective tax treatment to McDonald's

On 19 September 2018, the European Commission published a press release regarding its investigation into whether Luxembourg had granted state aid to McDonald’s, via two rulings issued respectively in March and September 2009.

The European Commission investigated whether Luxembourg had misapplied its national legislation as well as its double tax treaty with the United States, leading to a double non-taxation scenario in favour of Mc Donald’s.

The Commission concluded its in-depth investigation, considering that Luxembourg did not misapply its national legislation, or the US-Luxembourg double tax treaty for that matter, but that McDonald’s double non-taxation resulted from a mismatch between US and Luxembourg tax laws and hence did not constitute State aid.

However, it should be noted that in recent years, developments in international taxation (i.e. BEPS¹, MLI²), have been brought forward to counter, amongst other things, such double non-taxation scenarios.