By JAKE FRANKENFIELD

Reviewed by DAVID KINDNESS

Fact checked by YARILET PEREZ

编写人：JAKE FRANKENFIELD

审核人：DAVID KINDNESS

事实核查人：YARILET PEREZ

What Are Research and Development (R&D) Expenses?

什么是研发费用？

Research and development (R&D) expenses are associated directly with the research and development of a company's goods or services and any intellectual property generated in the process. A company generally incurs R&D expenses in the process of finding and creating new products or services.

研发费用与公司商品或服务的研发以及研发过程中产生的任何知识产权有直接关系。公司通常在发现和创造新产品或服务的过程中产生研发费用。

As a common type of operating expense, a company may deduct R&D expenses on its tax return.

研发费用是一种常见的营业费用，公司可在其纳税申报表中扣除研发费用。

KEY TAKEAWAYS

关键要点

·Research and development (R&D) expenses are direct expenditures relating to a company's efforts to develop, design, and enhance its products, services, technologies, or processes.

研发费用是与公司开发、设计和改善其产品、服务、技术或工艺相关的直接支出。

·The industrial, technological, health care, and pharmaceutical sectors typically incur the highest degree of R&D expenses.

工业、科技、医疗保健和制药行业的研发费用通常最高。

·The IRS offers tax breaks for R&D expenses, and these may also be deducted on corporate tax returns.

美国国税局针对研发费用提供了减税措施，研发费用可在公司纳税申报表中进行扣除。

Understanding Research and Development Expenses

了解研发费用

Research and development is a systematic activity that combines basic and applied research to discover solutions to new or existing problems or to create or update goods and services. When a company conducts its own R&D, it often results in the ownership of intellectual property in the form of patents or copyrights that result from discoveries or inventions.

研究与开发是一项系统性活动，通过基础研究和应用研究的相结合，发现新问题或现有问题的解决方案，或者创建或更新商品和服务。公司开展自主研发，通常会因发现或发明获得专利或版权等知识产权的所有权。

An essential component of a company's research and development arm is its direct R&D expenses, which can range on a spectrum from relatively minor costs to several billions of dollars for large research-focused corporations. Companies in the industrial, technological, health care, and pharmaceutical sectors usually have the highest levels of R&D expenses. Some companies—for example, those in technology—reinvest a significant portion of their profits back into research and development as an investment in their continued growth.

公司研发部门的其中一个重要组成部分就是直接研发费用，研发费用可以是相对较小的成本，对于大型研究类公司而言，也可以是数十亿美元。工业、科技、医疗保健和制药行业相关公司的研发费用通常最高。一些公司（比如，科技公司）会将其大部分利润重新投入研发，以期利润获得持续增长。

Large companies have also been able to conduct R&D through acquisition by investing in or subsidizing some of those smaller companies' costs or acquiring them outright.

大公司还能够以收购的方式通过投资或补贴某些小公司或直接收购小公司开展研发活动。

Real World Example of R&D Expenses

研发费用的真实示例

Tech companies rely heavily on their research and development capabilities, so they have relatively outsized R&D expenses. In a constantly changing environment, it's important for such a company to remain on the bleeding edge of innovation. For example, Meta (META), formerly Facebook, invests heavily in the research and development of products such as virtual reality and predictive AI chatbots. These endeavors allow Meta to diversify its business and find new growth opportunities as technology continues to evolve.

科技公司对研发能力的依赖程度较高，研发费用也就相对较高。由于环境在不断变化，对于科技公司而言，始终处于科技创新的前沿这一点至关重要。比如，Meta (META)（前身为Facebook）大力投资虚拟现实和预测性人工智能聊天机器人等产品的研发。为此，Meta得以实现业务的多元化，并随着科技的不断发展找到新的发展机会。

Meta's 2014 acquisition of Oculus Rift is an example of R&D expenses through acquisition. Meta already had the internal resources necessary to build out a virtual reality division, but by acquiring an existing virtual reality company, it was able to expedite the time it took them to develop this capability.

Meta于2014年收购Oculus Rift，就是通过收购产生研发费用的一个例子。Meta已经拥有建立虚拟现实部门所需的内部资源，但是通过收购现有虚拟现实公司，能够加速提高这种能力。

Reasons to Conduct R&D

进行研发的理由

Businesses conduct R&D for many reasons, the first and foremost being new product research and development. Before any new product is released into the marketplace, it goes through significant research and development phases, which include a product's market opportunity, cost, and production timeline. After adequate research, a new product enters the development phase, where a company creates the product or service using the concept laid out during the research phase.

企业开展研发活动的原因有很多种，首要的是新产品的研发。任何新产品投放市场之前，都会经历研发这一重要阶段，其中包括产品的市场机会、成本和生产时程。经过充分的研究后，新产品进入开发阶段，公司利用研究阶段提出的概念创建产品或服务。

Some companies use R&D to update existing products or conduct quality checks in which a business evaluates a product to ensure that it is still adequate and discusses any improvements. If the improvements are cost-effective, they will be implemented during the development phase.

一些公司利用研发对现有产品进行更新或进行质量检查，就是企业对产品进行评估以确保其质量仍符合要求，并就任何改进进行讨论。如果改进具有成本效益，则将会在开发阶段进行实施。