The growing interaction of world economies has increased the mobility of capital and reinforced the fiscal competition among countries. Since its creation the European Union tried to encourage the mobility while at the same time attempting to reduce the distortions caused to economic activities. This paper studies effective tax rates in the European Union reviewing EU’s harmonization proposals of corporate income taxation. Empirical results based on a micro forward-looking approach originally developed by Devereux and Griffith (1998, 2003) are presented. The conclusions are supportive of the positive effect of EU’s actions, although stressing the potential effect that international tax competition has exerted all around the world
Keywords: Corporate taxation, capital taxation, tax harmonization, harmful tax competition, effective tax rate
Jel Code: H25, H32, H87 E62