September X, 2014 -- Now that American icon Burger King has agreed to merge with Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons in a blatant "screw you" to the U.S. Treasury, the trend of moving abroad to save on taxes seems to be catching on. The latest party to take advantage of this is infamous terror group ISIS, which announced through Al Jazeera that it is moving its headquarters to Canada.
"The corporate tax rate in Iraq is just killing us," said ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. "We can't function in such an anti-business environment. That's why we're so angry all the time. Canada, on the other hand, has a corporate tax rate of only 26.5 percent, which is really awesome. What's the point of terrorizing and pillaging if we can't keep most of our spoils?"
This type of 'tax inversion' deal has drawn fire in the international community for being unpatriotic but ISIS is undeterred by the criticism. "People don't understand how burdensome it is to pay taxes twice - once at the corporate level and once at the individual level. Our warriors are being fleeced by the Iraqi government but nobody seems to care. The press never covers that side of the story," grumbled al-Baghdadi.
Of course, the Canadian government is not very happy about this development and has expressed concern for the safety of its citizens if ISIS moves to its shores.
We asked ISIS for a response to this and their public relations department issued the following statement: "The Canadians have nothing to fear. We feel that they have enough problems already because of their bizarre desire to be French, total lack of ambition, and most of all, their ridiculous accent. We will only be using the Canada office for planning purposes and dissemination of grisly videos to the world but will restrict our terror campaign to the Middle East."
The U.S. State Department, however, has made it clear that if ISIS moves to Canada, the U.S. government will launch airstrikes against its neighbor -- something it has wanted to do for a long time anyway. From a geopolitical standpoint, such posturing could be construed as an act of war but, true to form, the Canadians just said "thank you" and went back to doing nothing. Some analysts even speculate that the Canadians are closet S&M junkies and actually want to be bombed by the U.S.
When asked whether ISIS would change its flag after the move, al-Baghdadi responded: "Does a camel have a hump? Our graphic designers have come up with some really cool ideas, including a maple leaf with bullet holes in it and a moose carrying an AK-47. Please understand that even though we are doing this for tax reasons, we are grateful for Canada's hospitality and will do everything we can to integrate with the local population there. We also look forward to giving them the divine gift of Sharia law."
After a pause, the leader of the terror group added: "Of course, if the Canadians disrespect us, we will have no choice but to chop off their heads, but why worry about that now? In any case, they will receive billions of new tax dollars from us so they should be happy about that." Noting our skepticism, he explained with a grin: "We invested early in Google, made a fricking bundle on it! Not just a pretty face, man..."
So is ISIS just the tip of the Canadian iceberg for such tax inversion deals? Will other terror groups follow and if so, could Canada have finally found a reason for its existence? Who knows but whatever happens, one thing is for certain: if ISIS moves there for a lower tax rate, the Canadian government better not even think about raising it...
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