A Comparative Study between the Iranian, Canadian, and European Union Legal Systems on Taxation of Income from Intellectual Properties’

Tax law, in general, and the field of taxation of intellectual property, in particular, are legal majors which their significance has largely been overlooked in our legal system. Developed countries have advanced independent tax regimes entitled ‘patent box regimes’ to tax intellectual property income. However, the Iranian legislator, in ‘the Iranian Direct Tax Code’ and ‘the Executive Code of the Law on the Protection of Enterprises and Institutions of Expressions and the Commercialization of Innovations and Inventions’ has sporadically addressed taxation of intellectual properties. The lack of a specific law on the taxation of income from intellectual property, the lack of literature on the taxation of income from intellectual property, the dramatic growth of the importance of intellectual property as one of the factors of production in the field of economic, etc. justify conducting comprehensive legal research in this regard. Accordingly, this paper intends to adopt a comparative approach to glean some workable lessons from the tax systems of some developed countries in taxation of intellectual properties. This paper, then, proposes a legal framework based on the social, political and economic realities of our country.