| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 事業經營法務碩士在職學位學程 === 106 === The Senior Economic Researcher at the Brookings Institution, Director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Mr. David Wessel, who published an article regarding “Is Lack of Competition Strangling the U.S. Economy?" on March 23, 2018 in the Harvard Business Review, although it is only a metaphor in the name of IT star companies, indeed it means the harm made by some of American high technology enterprises, citing a Chinese saying " the success or failure of the affair is all due to the very same person ". The author takes Google as an example, pointing out that the star companies such as Apple, Starbucks, Amazon, Facebook and so on have intended to be industry centralized; these big companies "utilize”" their market power and high-tech capability to quietly repel other potential competitors, resulting in “the phenomenon of least competition in the US market.” The high-tech multinational companies dominate the US local market as well as the global market. It is undeniable that these technology giants have led the world to another level of economic growth in the past 2 decades since the beginning of the year 2000. They have turned over the weight of the hardware to software in the global economy, yet they also have enjoyed the absolute interests of the huge business to control the market, thus the corresponding market has eventually resulted.
Responding to aformentioned industrial phenomenon, the multinational technology enterprises which mainly rely on smart technology in current digital economy, perfectly use of the leakage of current regulations or the old public system, and the preferential taxation policy to achieve the effect of legal tax avoidance, such as the "patent box" system discussed in this article. “Patent box”, it is the tax incentives implemented in a number of EU member states to encourage smart technology innovation; it is a part of the EU''s competition law belonged to State Aid program. In response to the OECD BEPS Action Program, the European Commission has conducted an investigation of technology companies who own the control power in the EU market, and recently sentenced some US companies which violate the EU State Subsidy Act. As a result, those companies are necessary to pay back the total amount of tax credits obtained; the case has drawn lot of attentions and concerns.
Although the EU law has superiority among member states, it is a challenge for how the Executive Committee is compatible with the unfair competition and market failure problems caused by the economy development strategies implemented by the member states under two different public systems. Furthermore, another challenge, after the Brexit, how does the EU with UK coordinate and manage communication, manpower cost and efficiency while involving in the the competition law enforcement. These are all practical issues worth to be exploring and discussed. In short, it has been widely believed that intellectual property rights, taxation, competition laws, etc. should not be directly related. Yet it can be seen in the case of US based multinational enterprises that have been subjected to investigation and punishment by the European Commission due to unfair competition, in addition OECD BEPS’s First Action to address the topic of "In response to the challenges of the digital economy", Action 8 for the "Guidelines of transfer price for intangible assets”, and the "anti-tax avoidance" clause enforced (contributed by the income of royalties), all of them have evidenced that the intellectual property rights, tax incentives, competition law are all related since now. Also seeing the strong intention of international organizations as well as governments supports the movement to cultivate intelligent industries and the prevention of corporates’ aggressive taxation plans. When the global industrial structure changes, consumer behaviors and habits are no longer limited to the products obtained by touch, the relevant national economic systems and norms that will cover an even wider variety of types of intellectual property goods, changes in market mechanisms and rapid law formulation will become a top priority for all national institutes.
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