The effect of innovative tax lever and ‘quasi’ self financing of innovative activities of industrial enterprises

We have considered the possibilities and sources of the financial support for stimulating the innovation activities of industrial enterprises. It is shown that unlike in developed foreign countries, direct public funding is insufficient in Russia, and the existing system of tax incentives has no significant effect on enhancing the innovative activities. The system of public-private partnership proposed by some scholars does not imply using new sources of financing for innovative activities. While bank lending is limited by high interest rates, which is why the enterprises actively implementing technological innovations mostly use their own financial resources for this purpose. The goal of the study is to examine the effect of innovative tax lever (ITL) and use it in the form of ‘quasi’ self-financing of innovative activity of industrial enterprises as part of public-private partnerships. A quasi self-financing mechanism is proposed for boosting the innovative activity of industrial enterprises, based on the innovative tax lever effect, i.e., increasing the revenue from major taxes such as VAT, personal income tax and tax on profit per ruble of sales with a one percent increase in the share of the value added in the cost structure of production of industrial enterprises. We have proposed a method of ITL calculation and the calculation formula of its maximum possible effect with respect to certain taxes and contributions to state social funds, as well as the formulas for calculating the actual effect obtained for these types of taxes and deductions. The state and the regions can allow the enterprises actively implementing innovations to use the increase in the amount of basic taxes resulting from intensified innovation activities to subsequently boost their innovative activities fully or partially provided that they conclude the corresponding contracts. A part of the increase in taxes may be accumulated in special innovation funds for financing the innovations of other enterprises in this area. Thus a new element or form of public-private partnerships emerges. ITL VAT will be greater than unity if the share of the value added to the value of sales will not exceed one half, which is typical for the manufacturing industry, so the mechanism of quasi self-financing should be used primarily for such production. In this case there is a possibility of full quasi self-financing the investments in the further development of innovative activity of each individual industrial enterprise.