Development of the tax incentive mechanism in the field of information technology

Abstract

The relevance of the work is explained by the amendments to the tax legislation related to IT companies in Russia, the so-called “IT maneuver” adopted in 2021. Income tax and social insurance benefits were increased, while VAT exemption was reduced. In September 2021, the Government of the Russian Federation approved the second package of measures to support the IT industry, which includes several tax measures. The purpose of the second package is to increase the demand for domestic IT products, to accelerate digital transformation of the economy and social sphere, as well as to create favorable conditions for doing IT business in Russia. In this regard, the subject of our study is the mechanism of taxation and measures of tax policy for IT sector. The goal of the study is to analyze the effectiveness of tax incentives for the development and sale of products of IT industry with the aim of increasing the export of high value-added services, as well as assessing the impact of benefits on insurance premiums on the development of the information technology industry in Russia. The research method consists in analyzing domestic proposals for stimulating the IT industry as part of the “IT maneuver” and comparing them with foreign approaches to the development of the IT sector. To analyze the effectiveness of tax incentives, we use an empirical estimation of the dynamics of IT enterprises’ economic performance, which is then compared between two samples: 1) a sample of enterprises enjoying the IT benefit, and 2) a sample of enterprises that don’t have any benefits. The findings show that companies enjoying the IT benefit on social insurance payments significantly outpace companies that did not have the benefit in terms of economic growth. We draw a conclusion that the IT benefits encourage the development of the IT industry. The recommendations are to continue the expansion of incentives for the IT industry as part of the “IT maneuver”, taking into account various comments. In particular, it is necessary to develop additional measures to support small businesses in the IT sector, as well as to develop a mechanism against the use of IT benefits for tax optimization purposes only.

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