"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.

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1709 Blog reader John Walker posted the following question as a comment on that blog, but it seems to me that it's more likely to receive an answer on this one. He writes:

"Australia used to have a very complex sales tax regime (for example the tax on tissue paper in a box was much more than the tax on the same tissue paper if wrapped around a toilet roll). Australia in the year 2000 introduced a uniform Goods and Services Tax (GST). GST largely replaced a complex and hard to see system, levied by both the Federal and the individual state governments, with a uniform tax levied at the same rate on every transaction. (there are some exceptions, but nobody's perfect)

Many of the EU's copyright' levies are transaction taxes; the nexus between the consent of a right holder and payment to the same right holder is clearly severed.

Doesn't the EU have any policy about aiming for a reasonably uniform transaction tax regime?"

Can any reader give John some assistance on this point?

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The Fenech Farrugia Fiott Legal newsletter, Malta 2012 Budget -- Tax Highlights", contains some good news for IP owners:

"Copyright & IP royalty exemption

The tax exemption on royalties from qualifying patents introduced in 2010 has been extended to cover royalty income from works protected by copyright and other IP including books, film scripts, music and art".

Anne Fairpo covered Malta's tax exemption for patent royalties on IP Finance in April 2010, here.

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