By Tony Dong and Philip Liu King & Wood Mallesons’ Tax Group

Technology innovation is the engine that will drive the 21st century economy. With growing economic demand for core technologies from Chinese enterprises, recent years have witnessed the robust development of Intellectual Properties (“IP”) transactions in China, in which tax issues are often important elements to consider when structuring IP transactions, especially for the IP transfers carried out in the context of IPOs, mergers, acquisitions, or investment projects. We will discuss in the article the major PRC tax considerations for IP transfers, especially for cross-border IP transactions, with a view to achieve tax optimization and ensure tax compliance for such transactions.

 I .Tax Cost of IP Transfers
Continue Reading Tax Considerations for IP Transfer

作者:董刚  刘勃 金杜律师事务所税务

技术创新是21世纪社会的经济增长发动机。近年来,随着中国企业整体经济实力提升和技术创新意识增强,知识产权交易发展十分迅速,而基于上市、并购重组、外商投资等原因进行的知识产权交易,通常金额较大,税务因素对交易至关重要。本文将探讨知识产权转让交易中的税务影响,尤其是跨境交易中需关注的税务问题,以期相关交易能够实现税务优化及合规的目标。

 一、知识产权转让的税务成本

在中国税法框架下,知识产权所有权转让和使用权转让均属于无形资产转让,通常涉及的税种包括所得税(企业所得税或个人所得税)、营业税和印花税。
Continue Reading 知识产权转让的税务考量

By Tony Dong and Alice Zhang, King & Wood’s Tax Department

It is common for multinational companies to deploy offshore holding structures or set up special purpose vehicles ("SPVs") in tax havens to make investments, enter into cross border transactions or to list their IPOs. There are various reasons for companies to utilize offshore SPVs, and tax optimization is clearly one of the top considerations. For example, a company may take advantage of preferential tax treaty provisions or align profits to a low-tax jurisdiction or tax haven. However, in recent years, governments around the world have been tightening their tax administration of cross-border tax avoidance arrangements with TPG’s recent tax dispute in Australia is the latest example. The Chinese government has been actively involved in the game, and the State Administration of Taxation ("SAT") has issued a series of regulations in 2009 to strengthen tax scrutiny on non-residents.Continue Reading China Weaves a Tax Net over Offshore SPVs

The new PRC Enterprise Income Tax Law (“EIT law”) came into effect on January 1, 2008 and consolidated the enterprise income tax regimes for domestic enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises and ended the system of dual income tax regimes. The new EIT law unified the tax rates and tax incentive policies for both domestic enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises so that more equitable market conditions are created.

For those enterprises previously enjoying favorable tax incentives under the former tax regimes, the new EIT law provides a 5-year transitional period. For example, enterprises that enjoyed fixed term tax exemptions and reductions may continue to enjoy them until the end of the original term. Enterprises that used to enjoy a 15% tax rate will gradually shift from the lower rate to the 25% as required by the new EIT law. The transitional tax incentive policies are provided in many different tax regulations. The following is an introduction of some of the transitional tax policies:
 

Stephen Nelson, head of King & Wood’s Taxation Practice & Wu Libin 

Continue Reading Transitional Tax Incentive Policies relating to the Enterprise Income Tax