R&D tax incentive is quite a common policy instrument. It has been adopted in many countries since this type of incentives is generic in nature and applied equally to all R&D-performing firms in all sectors. Therefore, government can avoid criticism on picking the winners. Nonetheless, the incentives might be viewed as less effective than direct subsidies from the governments, which can target particular activities, clusters, or sectors. The effectiveness of tax incentives also depend largely on definition of R&D, administration of incentives, eligibility of firms, and form of incentives (OECD, 2002).
Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia have R&D tax incentives based on R&D expenditure (double deduction), while Taiwan adopted R&D tax credit. It should be noted that Singapore’ tax incentive system, like other financial incentives, has evolved according to the country’s strategy and level of technological capability. This is different from Thailand and Malaysia. When Singapore wanted to attract labour-intensive electronics industry from the US and Japan, its government offered ‘Pioneer Status’ with attendant tax holidays up to 15 years and other benefits to TNCs to invest in very ‘strategic’ projects in Singapore. During the late 1980s to the late 1990s, when Singapore’s strategy has shifted to position itself as an R&D hub of TNCs, government launched the ‘liberalized Research and Development Tax Deductions Program’. Unlike other countries, this deduction included R&D activities outside but related and benefited to those in Singapore, though the deduction rate was lower than local activities. It seems like Singapore’s government officials have an understanding of how global R&D networks of TNCs operate and what constitute an R&D hub. From the late 1990s onward when Singapore emphasized more on indigenous innovation by high-tech entrepreneurs, the government initiated R&D Incentive for Start-up Enterprises (RISE). It was specifically designed to meet the needs of R&D-intensive startups which usually spend the first few years developing products and incur losses. Tax exemption is therefore not useful for them. RISE program allowed these start-ups to convert their tax losses to cash grants during the initial years. Since 2010, firms can deduct 400% of their expenditure from their income, subject to a cap of Singapore $800,000, on innovation activities not just R&D but also design, registration and acquisition of IP and acquisition of automation equipment. Singapore government perfectly realizes that successful innovation needs more than R&D. It is a combination of several activities which should be supported.
Taiwan’s tax credit covers not only direct R&D activities but also expenditure on critical activities for upgrading firms’ activities, namely, automation of production, reclamation of
resources, pollution control, employing of clean and energy-saving technologies, and increasing efficiency of uses of digital information technologies. The experiences of Taiwan illustrates that the country understands how to implement government incentives to tackle the technological upgrading problems faced by Taiwanese companies. In this regard, Taiwan and Singapore are similar.
Between Thailand and Malaysia, the latter implemented its double deduction program more than 10 years earlier. The scope of Malaysian R&D tax incentive schemes also much wider covering not only R&D activities, but also commercialization of R&D findings. Apart from double deduction of R&D expenditure, Thailand’ Board of Investment initiated a scheme in 2003 to promote ‘Skill, Technology and Innovation or STI’ by offering tax exemption for additional 1-3 years for companies already receiving tax privileges for investment on production, if these companies meet its requirements for in-house R&D, in-house training, and R&D collaboration with local universities. Nonetheless, Malaysia‘s tax incentive system is more selective. It has tax incentives for targeted industries (such as ICT, biotechnology), activities (such as medical device testing laboratory), and geographical cluster (such as East Coast Economic Development Region). Incentives customized on merit of each case, the so-called ‘prepackaged incentives’ has also been introduced recently. Therefore, compared to Thailand, Malaysia has both generic and selective tax incentives.
Regarding efficiency of tax incentives, out of these four, Thailand is the only country that needs to scrutinize companies wanting to apply for R&D tax incentives project by project. It makes the application process cumbersome. This is because the level of trust in the Thai society is low. Thai government has been very worried about false claim. Department of Revenues (the responsible agency for the scheme of double deduction of R&D expenses), therefore, authorized another government agency, National Science and Development Agency which is the largest public research institute, to approve whether submitted projects were really R&D projects and proposed R&D expenses were appropriate. As many projects were submitted, an average approval period at present lasts as long as 5-6 months. Similarly, project-to-project approval is required for firms would like to take advantage of BOI’s STI program. Nonetheless, number of approval projects has increased over years. Likewise, in the case of Taiwan, after 2000s, number of approved tax deduction in NT$ has increased year by year, but number of companies applying for such incentives has not significantly changed. As for beneficiaries of tax incentive schemes, while large firms are main beneficiaries of Malaysian’s R&D tax incentives, small-and medium-size firms were also active in the Thai case.
Only Taiwan had formal study on impacts of its tax incentives. Tax credits for encouraging R&D, training and automation induced further R&D investment leading to increase in employment and GDP. As a result, there are significant positive net effects on tax revenue
(Liu and Wen, 2011). In the case of Thailand, though one cannot observe direct causation, results from community innovation surveys in Thailand illustrate that innovating firms used R&D tax incentives more than non-innovating firms.