减税降费、研发投入与企业经营绩效——来自创业板高新技术企业的经验证据

Tax and fee reduction,R&D investment and business performance——Empirical evidence from high-tech enterprises in GEM

我国高新技术企业作为创新活动的主力军,承担着经济高质量发展的重要责任。2020—2022年由于受到各种重大社会事件的影响,大多数中小型高新技术企业盈利能力严重下降,部分企业甚至破产倒闭,一定程度上影响了我国的创新发展。政府实施的减税降费政策能够使高新技术企业从生产端着手达到“降成本”的目的,激发企业活力,提高企业经营绩效。以创业板高新技术企业为研究对象,选取2017—2020年的面板数据,实证分析减税降费、研发投入与企业经营绩效之间的关系。研究发现:减税降费政策能够显著提高高新技术企业的经营绩效;减税政策能够增加高新技术企业的研发投入,降费政策能够节约高新技术企业的研发成本;研发投入在减税降费与企业经营绩效之间具有部分中介作用。

Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China points out that it is necessary to accelerate the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy,achieve high-quality economic development,and accelerate the transformation and upgrading of the economy.As the main force of innovative activities,China’s high-tech enterprises bear an important responsibility of high-quality economic development.However,due to the impact of various major social events in 2020—2022,the profitability of most small and medium-sized high-tech enterprises has seriously declined,and some enterprises have even gone bankrupt,which has affected China’s innovation and development to some extent.Since 2018,China has implemented the inclusive tax and fee reduction policy,and then Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China also mentions that the tax burden of small and medium-sized enterprises should be further reduced.Based on the overall economic situation,the policy of tax and fee reduction implemented by the government commits to long-term development,and fully stimulates the vitality of market players through tax reform,which can enable high-tech enterprises to achieve the goal of“reducing costs”from the production end,stimulate the vitality of enterprises,and thus improve their operating performance.However,whether China’s high-tech enterprises use the tax and fee reduction policy to increase their own innovation investment,and whether the tax and fee reduction policy can in return improve their operating performance by promoting the innovative investment of high-tech enterprises are two problems worthy of studying.Firstly,this paper introduces the background of tax and fee reduction policy.Then,the relationship between tax and fee reduction,R&D investment and enterprise performance is analyzed and the research hypothesis is put forward.Later,a theoretical model is established,and the high-tech enterprises in China’s Growth Enterprise Market from 2017 to 2020 are taken as the research samples for regression analysis and robustness tests.Finally,these sample enterprises are analyzed by grouping regression according to different property rights,and the influence of tax and fee reduction on the operating performance of high-tech enterprises is further discussed.The results show that:(1)The policy of tax and fee reduction can significantly improve the operating performance of high-tech enterprises.(2)The tax reduction policy can increase the R&D investment of high-tech enterprises,and the fee reduction policy can save the R&D investment of high-tech enterprises.(3)R&D investment plays a partial intermediary role between tax and fee reduction and business performance.Finally,according to the theoretical analysis and empirical results,the following suggestions are put forward from the perspectives of the government and the enterprises themselves:(1)The government can further strengthen the implementation of the tax and fee reduction policy,and try its best to encourage more high-tech enterprises to enjoy the benefits of the policy.(2)The government should further liberalize the restrictive conditions for small-scale tax payers in high-tech enterprises to issue special VAT invoices by themselves or on their own behalf.(3)High-tech enterprises should strengthen their own cost management.(4)High-tech enterprises should make full use of the transmission effect of R&D investment between tax and fee reduction and enterprise performance,use part of the saved taxes and social security fees for R&D investment,and actively carry out innovative activities.