Comparison of Investment Costs for Companies Using EU Structural Funds and Investment Incentives

The aim of this paper is to compare the various forms of public support for the company, specifically European subsidies from structural funds and investment incentives in the Czech Republic. Both of these public financial instruments are supposed to support company's investment but are these tools able to compansate costs that companies have to spend for them? In the research there are four types of investment costs defined: costs of completing application, investment costs, costs of subsidy management and sustainability costs. All of these costs are explained for each instrument with respect of application process. The presented results show that European subsidies are less expensive for the examinated company in spite of fact that application process is a heavy administrative burden. Appart from investment incetives that have easier application process, the investment costs are compansated by minority part of the investment incentives. The great item of investment incentives represents sustainability costs that might be covered by provided amount of tax relief. The investment incentives are certain risk that the invested costs may not be entirely covered by the investment incetives. At the end the paper compares costs of two companies defined as small and medium enterprises. Each company applied for one of the examinated financial instruments. The used methods for this paper are search inquiries, expert estimates, comparison and explanation. Theoretical approaches are examinated in a case study of two companies that have received EU subsidies and investment incentives in the Czech Republic. The results also rely on previous results of research project.