Research On The Incentive Effect Of Tax Preferential Policies On R&D Investment Of Software Enterprises

Software is the "soul of a new generation of information technology industry" and a key area in which countries around the world are competing for commanding heights in science and technology.At this stage,China’s software companies lack R&D investment and core technologies.Especially under the current situation of domestic economic downturn and increasing international trade frictions,the problem of weak technological innovation capabilities has become increasingly prominent.Enterprise R&D activities are the source of technological innovation.To improve the level of software technology innovation in China,we must strengthen R&D investment in software enterprise.In order to encourage software companies to increase R&D investment,in recent years,the Chinese government has introduced a series of tax incentives,and the tax incentives have been increasing.However,the actual R&D incentive effects of these tax incentives are still worthy of further investigation.Based on this,we explore the effects of different tax incentives on R&D incentives for software companies,and propose improvements for the problems in China’s current tax incentives.Firstly,this article analyzes the meaning and characteristics of tax incentives,software and software companies,and R&D,and clarifies the research objects of this article.Then,based on externality theory,tax leverage theory,and portfolio theory,it studies the theoretical mechanism of tax incentives to encourage software companies to increase R&D investment,and uses the production function model to analyze the effects of different tax incentives.Based on the theoretical analysis,it also sorts out the existing preferential tax policies to encourage R&D of software companies in China,and analyzes the problems in the preferential tax policies.Finally,this paper constructs an empirical model,using data from software listed companies from 2013 to 2018,to examine the actual R&D incentive effects of different tax incentives in China.Through theoretical analysis,status quo analysis and empirical research,this paper mainly draws the following research conclusions: First,preferential tax policies can increase software companies’ profits and increase R&D risk rewards,which is conducive to motivating software companies to increase investment in R&D funds.Second,taxesPreferential policies can increase the salary level of R&D personnel and reduce the cost of enterprise employment,which is conducive to motivating software companies to increase investment in R&D personnel.Third,due to the limited number of software R&D personnel in China,tax incentives that stimulate the R&D personnel investment are slightly weaker.Fourth,direct tax incentives encourage software companies ’R&D investment through income effects,and indirect tax incentives encourage software companies’ R&D investment through income effects and substitution effects.Indirect tax preferential policies have better R&D incentive effects than direct tax incentives;Fifth,there are still many problems in China’s tax incentives,such as the small number of indirect tax incentives,the one-size-fits-all direct tax incentives,the imperfect personal income tax incentives,etc.These policy defects have caused that incentive effect of R&D investment is still limited.In order to give full play to the leverage function of tax preferential policies and maximize the incentive effect on software companies’ R&D investment,this paper proposes improvement suggestions from the following aspects: First,increase and optimize indirect tax preferential policies;second,control the scale of direct tax preferential policy;third,improve the individual income tax policy to encourage innovation;fourth,establish a multi-sector joint supervision system.