Tax breaks for the big hit the smallest

Oliver Grun's Germany-based software company employs around 100 people and pays 30 percent tax on profits. Microsoft, his biggest competitor, pays 3 percent.

"We are paying 10 times more taxes on profits than them, that's crazy, that's absolutely intolerable," said Grun, who is also the president of the Brussels-based European Digital SME Alliance.

The EU has around 23 million small and medium-sized companies. They represent around 99 % of all enterprises in the EU.

Of those...