Small business is one of the main factors of the political and social stability of society and the national economy in modern European states. At the same time, small business is susceptible to a number of factors and requires state support. The most effective instruments of state support are financial methods, primarily fiscal methods of influence, which are implemented directly through the taxation system. In Ukraine, Romania and Moldova special attention is paid to the issue of tax incentives for small businesses. Each country has its own tax incentive system, which makes it possible to apply one or another type of tax instruments, as well as various options for combining them. The analysis allows to single out the following main tendencies in the relationship between this states and small business entities: 1) establishment of preferences for small and medium-sized businesses within the general taxation system; 2) wide use of special tax regimes in combination with the granting of tax privileges to small businesses. At the present stage of development of domestic tax legal relations between the state and small business entities, the most optimal is the preservation of special tax regimes and tax incentives for small businesses, while improving the content of such regimes in order to prevent tax evasion and avoidance of the tax law, as well as forms and methods of control activities of fiscal bodies.