CROSS-BORDER EQUITY CROWDFUNDING INVESTMENTS IN EUROPEAN LEGISLATION: A POSSIBLE PATH FOR STARTUPS ECOSYSTEM

The thesis is structured in the way to analyse the system of tax incentives in investments in innovative startups in two European countries: Italy and France. The analysis will give the possibility to understand if the tax incentives are useful to boost investments in innovative projects and if they are having an impact in it. Lastly, the work will analyse what has been found in order to evaluate the possibility to create a common European taxation incentive system between states in order to improve the European startups ecosystem. Crowdfunding is a form of alternative finance, funding by startups is made asking for small amount of money from a large amount of people. It is generally made by platforms on internet where the project is presented and all the characteristics of the projects are presented. Crowdfunding can be made by non-profit and for-profit ventures, in this work I will take into consideration only equity crowdfunding, so generally made for-profit ventures, when there is a reward in investing, part of the equity and dividends of the company. Italy has been the first country to adopt a clear regulation about the equity crowdfunding specifically, other European countries try to fit the existing regulation. And further legislative developments are coming out from other European countries, especially from a taxation incentives point of view. The aim is to incentivize investments also from privates in order to boost the European startup ecosystem whose value, generally is behind North America and Asia. The aim of this thesis is to investigate if what countries are doing by themselves is enough or if the Europe should create and implement an incentive taxation strategy also to permit cross-border investments in startup.