Innovation and Corporate Tax Planning: The Distinct Effects of Patents and R&D

Using a large U.S. sample, we find a significant and positive relation between patents and corporate tax planning, and the effect is incremental to the effect of R&D on tax planning. We employ a quasi-natural experiment based on staggered industry-level innovation shocks to identify the positive causal effect of patents on corporate tax planning. We also find that patents are not associated with tax planning for domestic firms, but their association with tax planning is concentrated in multinational firms, which have the ability to shift domestic income to low-tax countries. Moreover, we find that the identified effect mainly exists in the post-check-the-box (CTB) rule period when shifting income among affiliates becomes more flexible and convenient. Finally, we use two income shifting models and find that patents, rather than R&D, facilitate tax planning through an income shifting channel. Overall, our results suggest that R&D and patents facilitate firms’ tax planning in distinct ways: R&D facilitates tax planning as intended through tax credits and deductions, whereas patents are used to avoid taxes aggressively by taxpayers through income shifting.