The Impact of Tax Avoidance in the European Union

Abstract

In the context of contemporary debates on fiscal and economic policy, the impact of tax avoidance in the European Union was a frequently discussed topic at the negotiating table. In this paper, we followed the inflows of foreign direct investments and corporate tax collected to the state budget, trying to find out if a state with a high tax rate from the European Union could have an amortized impact of profit shifting, due to foreign direct investment inflows, also tracking how the corporate tax collected at the state budget changes, as the respective state reduces taxes. Following the research, we found out that paradoxically, as the state decreased the tax rate, corporate tax collected increased and also in certain years, the level of foreign direct investment exceeded corporate tax collected, which would indicate an amortized impact of tax avoidance.

Keywords

• tax avoidance
• european union
• foreign direct investment
• corporate tax