Intellectual property box regimes: Effective tax rates and tax policy considerations

Lisa Evers, Helen Miller and Christoph Spengel

ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: 11 European countries now operate IP Box regimes that provide substantially reduced rates of corporate tax for income derived from important forms of intellectual property. We incorporate these policies into forward-looking measures of the cost of capital, effective marginal tax rates and effective average tax rates. We show that the treatment of expenses relating to IP income is particularly important in determining the effective tax burden. A key finding is that regimes that allow expenses to be deducted at the ordinary corporate income tax rate, as opposed to the IP Box tax rate, may result in negative effective average tax rates and can thereby provide a subsidy to unprofitable projects. We assess the specific design features of different regimes against the possible policy aim of improving the incentives to undertake R&D investment in a country. While some countries have tried to tie the policy to real activities, others have designed a policy targeted at the income streams associated with intellectual property. A key concern is the role that IP Boxes may play in increased, and possibly harmful, tax competition between European countries.

Keywords: corporate taxation; effective tax rate; tax incentive; patent box; innovation box; preferential tax rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H25 H32 H87 K34 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-eur, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-law and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Journal Article: Intellectual property box regimes: effective tax rates and tax policy considerations (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:13070r

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