Free Trade Agreements Versus Customs Unions

Question: Discuss about the Free Trade Agreements Versus Customs Unions. Answer: Introduction: McDonalds is an American fast food company that specializes on burgers, barbecues, Hot dogs etc. The company was started in Illinois Chicago in 1955 by Ray Kroc and expanded to various parts in the US and other countries. Currently, McDonalds has 33,000 restaurants in more than 120 countries in the world serving 68 million customers per day. Many of the McDonalds restaurants are operated by local people of the countries where the company operates. In Australia, McDonalds was first opened in the Western sub-urban regions of Sydney in 1971. Up to31st December 2011, there were 869 restaurants in Australia serving approximately 1.7 million people each day. In Australia, McDonalds is a limited company by shares. Its franchise business is mainly operated on a owned by individuals and local businessmen/women. The rest of the restaurants are operated by the company staff. They usually sign a 20 year agreement with McDonalds to enable them operate more than one restaurant. This kind of arrangement enables McDonalds to be able to meet the needs of various communities on a framework that enables quality, high safety and accountability standards (Ritchie McDonalds 1990). The McDonalds franchises employ more than 90,000 people in the restaurants and companys companys offices across Australia. McDonalds is a significant employer and one of the major contributors to the Australian Economy. AECOM, an independent economic modeling company conducted a research and found that the economic contribution for McDonalds in Australia is 0.2% of GDP. The company spends over 1.1 billion per year in the manufacture of paper utilities, food and in the busines s support services. In addition, it spends $1 billion on the payment of wages and salaries across the 90,000 full time and casual workers. In addition, it spends $112 billion in the construction annually when building new restaurants and renovating the existing restaurants. For every $1 spent by McDonald, 0.79 cents are added to other industries. McDonalds is committed to ethical standards of doing business in order to comply with the rules and regulations of the food industry and that commitment is reflected in the companys values. Commitment to be truthful, ethical and dependable is inherent in each value and the companys code of conduct serves as the guide to decision-making processes in the company. The companys success is built on the foundation of professional integrity and this guiding principle applies to all McDonalds employees globally. The companys stakeholders include 1.7 Australians who visit McDonalds restaurants each day. This is a huge customer base and they range from families to citizens who visit the restaurants in the suburbs, small towns and regional centers. The companys business partners include the 9,000 suppliers and 258 franchises across Australia. In addition, the employees numbers exceed 90,000. The company has a close relationship with experts and opinion leaders, health professionals, government, environmental groups and media. All of these groups contribute largely to the success of the company. Globally, McDonalds serves more than 68 million customers daily in 120 countries. It has 36,899 outlets and sells burgers, chicken products, cheeseburgers, breakfast items, desserts, french-fries, milkshakes and soft drinks (Gilbert, et al 2004). To respond to the changing customer tastes, McDonalds have diversified their menu to include smoothies, fish, wraps, salads and fruits (Kwate 2008). The companys revenues come from fees, royalties and rent paid by franchisees. I(n addition, it get revenues from sales of fast foods in the restaurants that are directly operated by the company. Globally, McDonalds is headquartered in Oak Brook Illinois in the US. However the headquarters is moving to Chicago by 2018. Regulatory framework for food industry Food safety standards in Australia are outlined by a regulatory body known as the Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) (Walters Rainbird, 2004). These regulations apply to any business that deals with handling of food for sale. Production of safe food is essential to business success and the customers expectations of safe food cannot be compromised. Businesses that produce food for sale are expected to verify the safety and the quality of food they supply to manufacturers, retailers, as well as to the fast food franchises. Standard 3.2.2 of the food safety and general requirements sets out food handling guidelines relating to storage, processing, receipt, packaging, displaying, disposal, transportation, and the recall of food. In addition it sets out the other requirements such as the skills and knowledge of food handlers hygiene and health. Furthermore, it requires all the food premises to be cleaned, sanitized and maintained including the equipments within the premises. Compliance with these conditions ensures that the food sold to the customers is safe and suitable for consumption. In addition to food safety regulations, Multinational companies operating in Australia are subject to taxation on all incomes accrued in Australia. They are subject to 16% tax on their incomes from Australia. This is about half of the corporate tax rate which is about 30%. It is important to acknowledge that the Australian Taxation regime is very favorable for multinationals like McDonalds to operate freely as well as to do business in Australia. However, many of the multinationals operating in Australia has been avoiding paying taxes by engaging in technicalities and use of complex accounting mischief. The researchers at the University of Sydney conducted a research on 76 multinational companies in Australia and found out that the government loses $5.36 billion annually as a result of unpaid taxes by multinational companies. Companies usually engage in activities such as profit alienation, slashing of tax rates and debt loading. Profit alienation is a technique used by high tech com panies to hold intellectual property rights at zero tax jurisdictions so that the profits made in Australia can be remitted to the parent company as a payment of their expensive intellectual property. Debt loading involves the reduction of tax bills by Multinational companies. They finance their Australian subsidiaries with high interest rates and the profits earned are channeled back to offshore mother companies to repay the loans. The payment of loans by Australian subsidiaries is recorded as loss in the form of interest payments on a loan. In that regard, the multinationals manage to evade paying huge sums of taxation money. McDonalds is one of the many multinationals operating in Australia that has avoided paying their equal share of taxes. For instance, the company avoided paying half a billion dollars worth of taxes over a period of 5 years. McDonalds avoided paying tax by shifting their profits through Singapore due to the fact that it is a low-tax nation. A report by the global coalition of trade unions showed that McDonalds is one of the many multinationals who have taken advantage of the loopholes in the taxation system and managed to evade taxation (Woodhead Flemming, 2003). The report was funded by coalition of global trade and the Public Services International PSI as well as the International Union of Food Workers (IUF). They all looked at how McDonalds used aggressive taxation strategies to avoid remitting billions of dollars to Australian exchequer in terms of taxes. They do not allege an illegal behavior by the company but the use of complex accounting technicalities to subvert the course o f taxation. The financial accounts for McDonalds were well positioned to take advantage of mismatched tax regimes that allows companies to pay low taxes on royalty incomes (Taylor Richardson, 2012). It uses royalty payments from its franchises and business subsidiaries to get profits by avoiding taxes that would otherwise be paid if the business operated as a subsidiary for the main company. The report showed that the companys Australian operations had been unusual in the sense that there were huge inter-company payments going through Singapore. The payments shifted the profits out of Australia to the subsidiary in Singapore hence reducing the McDonalds tax obligations in Australia. Australia has since taken a leading role in tightening the loose taxation loopholes in their laws to ensure that global businesses pay their fair share of taxes. The Tax Laws Bill 2015 aimed at combating multinational tax avoidance has been released. It reveals the governments plan to tackle the avoidance of corporate tax through imposition of very strict reporting requirements for financial activities of multinational companies. In addition, the law imposes harsh penalties for the companies and firms that are found to be flouting the taxation rules. It implements the recommendations of the 2014 G20 summit on the Organization for Economic Cooperation (Motopoulos et, al, 207). It has been developed through the amendments of Taxation administration Act, Income assessment Act 1936 and Income Assessment act 1997 (Krueger, 2007). Schedule 2 of the bill prohibits the significant global firms from entering into artificial complex and contrived schemes to avoid paying taxes in Australia. The Multinational ant-avoidance law applies to when the following activities occur. That is when a foreign entity derives income after making supplies to Australian customers (Eden, 1998). Similarly, it applies when an entity in Australia is an associate, subsidiary or commercially dependent on a foreign entity. In addition, MAL applies when the income derived from a supply to Australians is sent somewhere outside Australia. Schedule 3 of the Bill puts up to 120% penalty on the amount of tax evaded is imposed on a multinational entity that evades tax. Under the Administration Act, the commissioners of taxes can double the maximum administrative penalty to the firm that evades tax through unscrupulous complex means. The bill has also set new standards of financial reporting to global firms operating in Australia. For instance, they are required to give the commissioner of taxes three statements namely a local file, a master file and the country by country report. These reports are meant to assist the commissioner of taxes to assess the transfer of pricing risks in order to authorize the commencement of the audits when necessary. Treaties, Conventions and Agreements International Tax agreement Amendment Bill no. 1 of 2002 was signed between various countries including the US with Australia. The US protocol was aimed at amending the convention between Australia and the United states to avoid he aspect of double taxation from occurring (Reichenmiller, 2006). It was also meant to prevent fiscal evasion of taxation in respect to multinational organizations incomes. The agreement allocated the taxing rights to the two countries in respect to different categories of income. The protocol removes the withholding tax on certain dividends hence enabling the major Australian and the US companies with operations in each of the countries to bring profits to the mother country without paying further tax (Markle Sharkelford, 2011). McDonalds is highly likely to be affected by this agreement because is originally an US company with a subsidiary in Australia and risks being taxed twice. This agreement will exempt the company from being taxed on some but not all dividends. The Australia United States Free Trade Agreement that was entered into force in 2005 is a critical agreement that directly affects multinational companies such as McDonald. It was a two way trade agreement that enabled the Australias-US trade value rise by 23% to $26.7 billion between 2004 and 2009. The US exports rised by 33% to $18.9 billion (Dodge, 2006). The treaty established close cooperation between the two countries in the agricultural industry with setting of working groups that enhanced the facilitation of Agricultural Trade. Owing to the fact that McDonalds deals with fast food ranging from burgers, a product made of various agricultural products such as meat and vegetables, the agreement is very critical in the continuance of the McDonalds operations in Australia. The convention between the government of Australia and the government of the United States in relation to the avoidance of double taxation with respect to taxes on incomes in 1982 is a very critical convention to McDonalds. It is important to acknowledge that McDonalds employs more than 90,000 people in Australia and the incomes on those employees is subject to taxation by the Australian government. However, some people including high ranking officials are US nationals and they are obliged to pay taxes on their incomes to the US. This treaty created clear guidelines on how the two governments can go about taxation policies regarding nationals and non-nationals working in multinational companies operating on either of the two countries. 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