A tax analyst told the TASR newswire that 42 percent of the entrepreneurs doing business in Slovakia have registered their home office enterprise in low-tax countries.
The number of firms moving their headquarters abroad, mainly to the Netherlands and Cyprus, has been increasing by 15 percent over the past year – despite Slovakia's adoption of the euro in January 2009.
“I expect tax havens to continue to be increasingly attractive. Entrepreneurs are still watched with some suspicion in Slovakia and required to disclose their property holdings in detail. A decision to relocate the firm is accelerated, among other things, by fears that corporate taxes are bound to rise as a result of the high state budget deficit,” said Michal Friedberg, a tax analyst with Akont Trust Company.
Apart from the Netherlands and Cyprus, the analyst said other tax haven countries in Europe are Switzerland, Luxembourg and Lichtenstein, while elsewhere in the world it is the Cayman Islands and Panama that offer complete anonymity of assets and often tax freedom.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
4. Oct 2010 at 14:00
