Governments around the world are grappling with the question of how to tax the income from intellectual property. Will offering tax breaks - called Patent Boxes after the box companies must tick on their tax forms - lead to a race to the bottom across Europe and who, if anyone, is to benefit.
Authors

CPP Co-Director
Rachel is Research Director and Professor at the University of Manchester. She was made a Dame for services to economic policy and education in 2021.

Comment details
- DOI
- 10.1920/co.ifs.2024.0937
- Publisher
- IFS
Suggested citation
Griffith, R and Miller, H. (2011). Patent Boxes: Are they an innovative way to race to the bottom? [Comment] IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/articles/patent-boxes-are-they-innovative-way-race-bottom (accessed: 10 February 2025).
More from IFS
Understand this issue

It’s time to take a firmer grip on companies and competition law
Globalisation, inequality, feeble productivity growth, earnings stagnation, the falling labour share of national income — the most important features of economic life. And one institution binds them together: the firm.
25 April 2022

Spring Budget 2024: What you need to know
7 March 2024

If you can’t see it, you can’t be it: role models influence female junior doctors’ choice of medical specialty
24 April 2024
Policy analysis

How do the last five years measure up on levelling up?
19 June 2024

Freeports: What are they? What do we know? And what will we know?
10 March 2023

Freeports and Investment Zones – what sorts of things should we consider when assessing whether they are good policy?
10 March 2023
Academic research

Firms and inequality
3 March 2022

Technology, skills, and performance: the case of robots in surgery
7 November 2022

Overconfidence and technology adoption in health care
31 August 2022