The Impact of Membership in the European Union on the Development of Tax Reforms in the Slovak Republic

The activity of the European Union manifests itself not only in the political, economic and social spheres, but also in the legal sphere, in which numerous harmonisations of the legislation of the individual Member States of the European Union are taking place, especially in the field of taxation. The study examines the historical development of tax regimes on the territory of the Slovak Republic, with the hypothesis of this study being that these reforms have been shaped not only by internal economic, political and social factors, but also by the extensive activities of the European Union. The aim of this study is to present a cross-sectional analysis of the key stages of tax reforms, to evaluate their compliance with the needs of the tax system in Slovak republic and to assess the extent of the impact of European legislation, in the form of regulations, directives and recommendations, on the national tax policy. The research used a comparative method to compare the development of tax principles in the Slovak Republic and the European Union, a method of analysis to analyse the individual phases of reforms and identify their objectives, as well as a synthesis method to formulate overall conclusions on the impact of these reforms on the current tax environment. The historical-descriptive method in mapping the developments and the normative method in assessing the appropriateness of the applied regulatory instruments were also used. The results confirm that the development of tax policy in Slovak Republic represents a hybrid model - responding to internal needs, but at the same time influenced by harmonisation trends within the European Union.