Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Taxation of IP transfers in Lithuania

"Key tax aspects of IP rights transfers", by Edita Ivanauskienė, Antanas Butrimas and Jurgita Randakevičiūtė (LAWIN Vilnius), provides a handy introduction to the niceties of the taxation of intellectual property right transactions in Lithuania. Published on International Law Office (here), this piece outlines the country's basic tax regime and then considers the position of tax-resident individuals, non-resident individuals, taxation of entities, Value-added tax (VAT) and the avoidance of double taxation.

Regarding VAT,
"The transfer of copyright and related rights, industrial property rights, franchise rights or know-how is considered a provision of services and is subject to value added tax at the standard rate of 21%".
It always seems strange to this blogger that an outright transfer of an intellectual property right should be regarded as the provision of a service.