McDonalds' European headquarters will be moving to Switzerland after 35 years based in the UK, for the country's more favourable intellectual property tax laws. The fast food giant said it is not the chancellor's 50% tax that has been its prime reason behind the decision but its potential to 'conduct strategic management of key international intellectual property rights, including the licensing of those rights to our franchisees in Europe, from Switzerland'. From the beginning of the month, companies in the UK will be paying double the amount of tax on foreign profits concerning intellectual property rights. Other companies such as Kraft and Yahoo have recently left the UK to reap the benefits of Switzerland's tax system and Brit Insurance, UBM and Regus are among those who announced in 2008 that they are to move to other jurisdictions for tax purposes, the Financial Times reports.