Tax Competition and IP Boxes after the Appliction of the Modified Nexus Approach

Abstract

This article deals with intellectual property (IP) boxes as an important factor in tax competition and tax planning. IP payments are used for profit shifting within a group of companies to lower their tax burden. One of the latest important developments in the use of IP boxes is the changing attitude of the OECD and its nexus approach, the application of which influences taxation within an IP box, especially the treatment of expenditures. This paper focuses on the situation regarding IP boxes after the implementation of the modified nexus approach, with an emphasis on changing the tax burden. These changes affect tax planning, thus managers need to know how they affect the overall tax burden of a company’s investments. As a measure of these changes, the effective average tax rate (EATR) was selected. This study concentrates on three countries which have applied this approach: Hungary, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The results indicate that there is a new dependence after the application of the modified nexus approach: the structure of IP expenditures. The implementation of nexus approach makes the statutory income tax rate important also for IP income, and it causes a higher tax burden on IP income in the case of a small share of IP qualifying expenditures. A significant importance of the statutory corporate tax rate for the taxation of IP income is shown by changes in EATRs related to IP income after a reduction in corporate tax rates in Hungary and in the United Kingdom in 2017.