Central and Eastern European Tax Guide 2019

Welcome to Mazars’ seventh annual Central and Eastern European (CEE) tax guide. The main purpose of this guide is to provide you with an overview of the tax systems in the CEE region. As always, this publication strives to help investors understand the complexities of the various CEE tax regimes.

In the first section, the tax systems of the CEE region are presented country-by-country, based on data provided by the relevant Mazars offices. At the end of this guide you will find summary tables that allow side-by-side comparisons
of the relevant tax environments.

This year’s issue already covers 22 CEE countries. The primary aim of the publication is to allow for comparisons to be made between the fundamental factors of competitiveness in the region. What are these factors? They primarily include the extent of the taxes and contributions on employment, the rates and special features of turnover taxes, as well as the corporate income tax system. In this year’s publication, we prepared a separate table summarizing key characteristic, like allowances for research and development (R&D) activities, or loss carry forward regulations.

Highlights of 2019:

  • Consumption-type taxes are still paramount, collection practices are becoming more stringent
  • Positive impressions with online invoicing
  • The total wage cost of employers is still close to 160% of the net wages; Hungary is still behind in this respect
  • Corporate income taxes differ widely, the greatest difference exceeds 20 percentage points
  • The European Union has taken steps to restrain tax competition and prevent tax evasion

Would you like to compare CEE tax systems online? 

Online tax guide 2019

Documents

Mazars CEE Tax Guide 2019
CEE Tax Guide 2019 Press release