For many years and numerous US companies The Netherlands used to be the location of choice. For economic reasons the competition between European countries to attract headquarters has increased and a number of European countries now not offer attractive conditions (sometimes even incentives) for US and other foreign companies. Apart from taxation, location and logistics, linguistic capabilities, available work force and standard of living are important issues to consider. The Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are all attractive locations with slightly different advantages. In June, 2012 the VU University Amsterdam and University of Mannheim/Centre for European Economic Research jointly published a study on "Corporate Taxation of Headquarter Services in Europe" in which the aforementioned countries are compared, also taking into account the specific needs companies may have.
The study can be found at: www.rechten.vu.nl/nl/Images/HQ%20Study_tcm22-276944.pdf
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