Tax competition
| Corporate taxation
| Eastern Europe
The effective tax burden in the new EU Member States is considerably lower than that in Germany, where corporate taxes are almost three times as high as in Lithuania. Investment in the new EU Member States has contributed to an overall reduction of the tax burden for German businesses.
On 25 May 2004, Ernst-O. Schulze, executive director of the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, will be celebrating 40 years of his professional service.
In spite of the reduction in corporation tax rates, the tax burden on firms in Germany has only sunk slightly this year. In contrast, the tax burden on the employment of highly qualified workers can considerably improve Germany’s international competitiveness in 2004 and 2005. The ZEW has come to this result with the help of the European Tax Analyzer, a software tool by which the tax burden imposed on companies and their activities in five countries can be compared, and the IBC-Taxation Index.
