국외등록 특허권 사용료 소득의 과세기준

This study analyzes the Supreme Court's decision, sentenced on November 28, 2014, that ruled against Tax Authority's argument on tax jurisdiction for royalty income derived from the patent right registered abroad. The verdict was based on the territorial privilege principle of patent right rather than taxation criteria for royalty income. However, the decision seems to be controversial because the Supreme Court did not judge the case from the perspective of internationally accepted rules for interpretation of both tax treaty and domestic tax law that shall be applied to tax cross-border income. Specifically, the ruling did not refer to the tax principles that are essential to decide source of income generated from intangibles such as patent right, which are articulated in Articles 31 to 33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties for a guideline for interpretation of tax treaty, Article 2, Paragraph 2 of the Korea-US Tax Treaty along with Article 3, Paragraph 2 of the OECD Model Tax Convention for ambulatory interpretation, and Number 8 of Article 9 of the Corporate Income Tax Law for the place of use of the patent right. Consequently, the ruling seems to be unacceptable in that emphasis was given too lightly on international taxation rules, but too heavily on the territorial privilege principle of patent right.