Stratification of tax incentives across the technology life cycle stages

The subject of this study is the instruments of tax incentives aimed at fostering Russia’s technological sovereignty, analyzed across the stages of the technology life cycle. The paper systematizes existing tax benefits in relation to four stages of the technology life cycle—innovation and development, growth and diffusion, maturity and standardization, and obsolescence and decline—and evaluates the dynamics of their practical application based on official data from the Federal Tax Service of Russia for 2020–2024. The research topic aligns with the current direction of Russia’s tax policy, as tax incentives represent a key instrument of indirect stimulation of innovation activity and the achievement of national technological independence. The article demonstrates that the existing system of tax incentives is structurally imbalanced: most instruments are concentrated at the early stages of the technology life cycle, whereas the later stages are significantly less supported. In addition, a number of existing tax benefits exhibit persistently low uptake due to imperfections in tax legislation and the complexity of administrative procedures. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the development of a stratification approach to assessing tax incentives for technological sovereignty, which makes it possible to identify disproportions in the distribution of fiscal instruments and to formulate directions for reforming specific tax measures in order to ensure a more balanced impact across all stages of the technology life cycle, as well as to increase the uptake and effectiveness of tax incentives.