Incidence of taxation on the economic and financial situation of farms in the European Union

In EU countries, agricultural taxation is of major importance for the competitiveness of economic operators active in the agriculture sector. In many countries, the implementation of non-fiscal objectives plays an essential role in preferential tax regimes targeted at the agricultural sector. This is because the adopted tax regime concept impacts the targets, structure and intensification of agricultural production and, as a consequence, affects the economic and financial performance of farms and other aspects. The main purpose of this paper was to assess the economic and financial standing of farms in European Union countries subject to different tax burdens. The empirical study was composed of two stages. The first stage was a synthetic assessment of farm taxation levels in the EU. For that purpose, TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) was used to develop a synthetic indicator used as a basis to arrange the countries and identify the types of farm taxation levels. The types of EU countries grouped by farm taxation levels became the starting point for an analysis of the relationship between taxation and the farms’ economic and financial situation. The sub-indicators of the farms’ economic and financial situation were presented for the typological classes concerned, including sub-indicators of production potential, production intensity, incomes, farm subsidies, indebtedness and investments. The empirical study was based on 2013–2015 FADN data (average figures).