FISCALIZATION OF COPYRIGHT. CONTRIBUTIONS TO CLARIFYING CERTAIN ISSUES REGARDING FISCALIZATION OF COPYRIGHT (fiscus ubique praesens est)

Intellectual creations and taxes have the gift (the first) and vice (the last) to be everywhere. Intellectual creations are sources of income for rights holders and the revenues incurred from their exploitation are, with some exceptions, taxed everywhere under a regime of favour. In some countries, the facilities granted are so attractive that the most important creators have established their headquarters in these „intellectual tax havens”. Researching the share of tax revenues from the capitalization of intellectual property rights in the total budgetary revenues of Romania in the last years, as they are highlighted in the annual budget laws, the first words spoken were: It can not! It can not be true! We can not be so low! According to Annex no. 1 of the state budget law, from the total amount of the planned revenues to be made in 2017, the amount of 96,825,000 lei is „income tax on the exploitation of intellectual property rights” and we find that it increased compared to 2016 with over 10,000,000 lei (from 86,384,000 lei), the forecasts for the following years being also of growth. Referring to the programmed amount to be made from the taxing of the results of the intellectual creation activity, we find that the share in the total state budget revenues is 0.082% (a sum that should not be worried by its small size only if we refer to the tax on profit of the commercial banks planned to be realized, that of 357,000,000 lei)