IBIMA Publishing Journal of Eastern Europe Research in Business and Economics http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/JEERBE/jeerbe.html Vol. 2016 (2016), Article ID 187734, 13 pages DOI: 10.5171/2016.187734 ______________ Cite this Article as: Mihai-Bogdan Afrăsinei, Iuliana Eugenia Georgescu and Mircea Georgescu (2016)," Analysis of the Presence of Romanian Listed Companies in Tax Havens", Journal of Eastern Europe Research in Business and Economics , Vol. 2016 (2016), Article ID 187734, DOI: 10.5171/2016.187734 Research Article Analysis of the Presence of Romanian Listed Companies in Tax Havens Mihai-Bogdan Afrăsinei, Iuliana Eugenia Georgescu and Mircea Georgescu Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, Iaşi, Romania Correspondence should be addressed to: Mihai-Bogdan Afrăsinei; bogdan.afrasinei@yahoo.com Received date: 3 April 2015; Accepted date: 10 August 2015; Published date: 19 September 2016 Copyright © 2016. Mihai-Bogdan Afrăsinei, Iuliana Eugenia Georgescu and Mircea Georgescu. Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 Introduction In recent years, offshore companies and tax havens have been in the center of many financial scandals, both nationally and internationally. Also, the press reports daily such cases involving numerous companies and businessmen, but also politicians, athletes, actors and other celebrities. If we appeal to a famous statement of Leona Helmesey, which argued that “only the little people pay taxes” (The Economist, 2001), we can say that tax havens are only for the powerful people. Undoubtedly, the subject of offshore economy is perhaps now, more than ever, the focus of attention of both the public and the authorities. A possible explanation can be given by "the sheer size of the phenomenon" and by the fact that one third of foreign direct investments of multinational companies are turning to tax havens jurisdictions (Palan, 2009). In the context of international tax planning, tax havens and offshore companies have become increasingly important and represent one of the most effective solutions in fighting taxation. Palan et al (2010) state that nowadays, a company (not necessarily multinational) without Abstract Tax havens are one of the most effective solutions in fighting taxation. In the context of international tax optimisation, almost all major companies in the world have subsidiaries or affiliates in such offshore jurisdictions. Similar studies conducted in other countries show that over a third of the companies listed on stock exchange have links to tax havens. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the presence of Romanian companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange in tax havens. In order to achieve this goal, we analysed the annual reports for 2013 of a sample of 80 Romanian publicly traded companies. The results emphasize that 36% of the Romanian listed companies had links to 16 tax havens in 2013. Also, approximately 23% (88 companies) of their overseas affiliates were incorporated in tax havens in 2013. Most of the companies with links to tax havens are operating in the industry sector. Keywords: tax havens, international tax planning, offshore finance, multinational companies