A Measure of Tax Burden for the Companies Listed on the AeRo Segment of the Bucharest Stock Exchange

Tax pressure can be calculated at the macroeconomic level, but also at the microeconomic level, by analysing the data provided by companies in their financial statements, or by authorities giving official statistics. In this study, the authors adapt a formula for the calculation of the effective tax rate, proposing, at the denominator, the taxes reported explicitly by companies in their profits and loss account, to which they added the reconstituted value of social and fiscal contributions of the employees. Also, unlike the literature so far, they divided these tax expenses to the sales (revenues) and not to any other indicators from the profit and loss account. The population analysed is represented by the companies listed on the AeRo market of BSE, in the period 2010- 2019, a total of almost 3,000 observations. The results allowed them to notice a systematic increase in the share of the tax burden in sales, over the period taken into account. In verifying the effects of some variables proposed by the literature on the tax burden, the authors found that large firms have a lower tax burden, more profitable firms are more taxed than others, the tax burden is lower for more leveraged firms, and increasing the share of fixed assets in the balance sheet leads to an increase in the tax burden. In addition to the literature, they introduced a new variable - audit opinion - and found out that firms that receive modified audit opinions have a higher tax burden.