“专利盒税制”(Patent Box Regime)对中国的借鉴

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Chinese Patent Box Regime. The Patent Box Regime is the preferential tax scheme for royalties or capital gains from intellectual properties which R&D performances make. In China, the government has made some legislative progress for supporting national corporations to do R&D work sufficiently and effectively. The Chinese Patent Box Regime includes tax preferential content to apply the special rate for transferring their intellectual properties such as capital gain from the IPs. It means that the tax regime chooses a little different route than other countries which operate the Patent Box Regime to apply this scheme for royalties and capital gains from the IPs. The Patent Box Regime brings about a side effect that people usually know, tax avoidance. According to this side effect, the global society comes out to take some action for abusing the Patent Box Regime. It shapes up as the primary part of BEPS Action 5. But it doesn't mean that the Patent Box Regime genuinely be made for tax avoidance. This paper makes a little solution to make up for weakness of the Patent Box Regime. Chapter 2 explains the reason why the Patent Box Regime comes into the picture. In existing R&D tax schemes, it focuses on R&D costs and the front-end of R&D process. First of all, companies make sufficient R&Ds for our society, but these companies lack R&D money. However, the Patent Box Regime focuses on the diametrical position where it concentrates on the back-end of R&D process. Following this manner, the Original Patent Box Regime could measure the social effect from the IPs. The Patent Box Regime designates commercial success of the IPs such as royalties or capital gains from the IPs as a proxy of the positive social effect. Chapter 2 also examines the calculation method for taxation technically, and considers legislative examples of other countries (including OECD/G20 Actions) to choose and operate the Patent Box Regime: U.K., the Netherlands, France, Ireland, and Belgium. Chapter 3 is an overview of the Chinese R&D tax system, including the Chinese Patent Box Regime. The Chinese government currently operates diverse tax preferential schemes for supporting R&D: deduction for R&D costs, the tax credit system for R&D, and the tax preferential scheme for innovative technology companies designated by the government. This paper explores these tax systems’ features briefly. Chapter 4 suggests personal opinions to make up for supporting and operating the Chinese Patent Box Regime desirably. First of all, the Chinese system extends the scope of the qualified taxpayer to include PEs in China. The qualified income and asset of the Chinese Patent Box Regime could also be needed to support R&D results and adjust practical problems. It would expand the qualified IPs to allow acquired IPs from the 3rd parties. In addition to expanding the qualified IPs, applying the Patent Box Regime to the following income could be needed to increase the social effect of this tax preferential regime: short-term (under 5 years) licensing fee and embedded royalties, etc. Finally, the current Chinese Patent Box Regime needs consolidation work to compile the administrative regulation for the regime such as the U.K. example.