Effectiveness of tax incentives for innovative activity in the Russian Federation: assessment and calculation

Abstract

The subject of this research is tax incentive that is a part of the process of innovative activity. Taxation is viewed as a tool for advancement of innovations. The experience of foreign countries demonstrates that government support in the form of funding, tax incentives, government subsidized loans, and creation of essential infrastructure play a big role in modernization processes. Expansion of the practice of implementation of tax incentives for stimulating innovations requires a theoretical comprehension of this process. This article examines the coefficient that characterizes economic effectiveness of tax incentives as correlation of separate indexes of innovation activity of recipients and benefits from tax spending. Assessment is conducted on the effectiveness of tax incentives in accordance with the data on innovation activity and tax revenue from different sectors that are leaders in the innovation sphere. The following conclusions were made: tax mechanism of stimulating innovation activity are not very popular and effective; precision of calculation is significantly affected by the current issues with the information base: complete absence of information with respect to stimulus recipients; the results of analysis demonstrate that the rate of increase of decreasing budget revenue surpasses the rate of growth that characterizes innovation activity of the taxpayer that testifies to the insufficient effectiveness of the provided tax incentives, prompting suggestion of new means for stimulation of tax incentives. The author proposes to amend statistical tax report, highlighting the information on the entire range of existing tax incentives. Consideration and control over rationality of tax incentive mechanisms would allow optimizing the list of tax incentives for innovation activity, as well as expand the list of sectors that use such incentives.