. "3 How Is America Doing Now in Science and Technology?." Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2007.
The following HTML text is provided to enhance online
readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML.
Please use the page image
as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy.
Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future
TABLE 3-3 R&E Tax Claims and US Corporate Tax Returns, 1990-2001
Year
R&E Tax Credit Claims
Current Dollars (millions)
2000 Constant Dollars (millions)
Returns
1990
1,547
1,896
8,699
1991
1,585
1,877
9,001
1992
1,515
1,754
7,750
1993
1,857
2,101
9,933
1994
2,423
2,684
9,150
1995
1,422
1,544
7,877
1996
2,134
2,274
9,709
1997
4,398
4,609
10,668
1998
5,208
5,399
9,849
1999
5,281
5,396
10,019
2000
7,079
7,079
10,495
2001
6,356
6,207
10,388
NOTES: Data exclude IRS forms 1120S (S corporations), 1120-REIT (Real Estate Investment Trusts), and 1120-RIC (Regulated Investment Companies). Constant dollars based on calendar year 2000 GDP price deflator. The R&E credit is designed to stimulate company R&D over time by reducing after-tax costs. Companies that qualify may deduct or subtract from corporate income taxes an amount equal to 20% of qualified research expenses above a base amount. For established companies, that amount depends on historical expenses over a statutory base period relative to gross receipts; startups follow other provisions.
SOURCE: US Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income program, unpublished tabulations.
US students for work in a more competitive global economy—as well as to provide the rudimentary skills needed in any economy.
RESTRAINTS ON PUBLIC FUNDING
Public financial support is the backbone of America’s research establishment. In the 1960s and 1970s, university researchers could look to a dozen or so federal sources for grant support, including NSF, NIH, predecessors of the Office of Science in the Department of Energy (DOE),47 the Department of Defense (DOD), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Department of Agriculture. Funding from those sources, combined with private money, provided flexibility and generosity unmatched in any other nation. Large numbers of today’s senior scientists and engineers owe their ability to pursue their professions to grants from those federal agencies.
47
The Department of Energy Office of Science began as a component of the Atomic Energy Commission.
