A map of EU28 countries in terms of corporate income tax competitiveness. How is Romania positioned?

In the context where the taxation at EU level is a subject of very high interest and lately the discussions of European decision-makers increasingly focus on harmonization at the level of the Union regarding the taxation, whether it is direct or indirect, Member States are forced to find various solutions for a fierce fiscal competition. In this respect, through our research we aim to identify a fiscal index from the perspective of fiscal competitiveness resulting from the analysis of several variables related to the corporate income tax at the level of EU28 states. Such variables refer to three main categories: tax rates, tax incentives and other related facilities and administration and deadlines for the taxpayers. In order to achieve this, we analyzed the corporate income tax provisions in the EU28 countries and based on the identified index we further defined 4 categories of countries, depending on their level of fiscal competitiveness. Further, the results obtained were highlighted by building a map of tax competitiveness at EU28 level. In order to collect the necessary information, we have used the reports issued by Big Four companies related to the year 2017. The results show broadly a distribution of fiscal competitiveness in the sense of its increasing from the Western European to the East, highlighting the increased need for Eastern European countries to attract investors through more relaxed corporate tax systems. Also, a result of the research, we found that Romania is positioned in the third category of EU28 countries with increased competitiveness.