IRS Tax Stats-2011

IRS just released the IRS Data Book and updated corporate research credit statistics; no doubt there will be plenty of analysis (and spin) coming out on both of these.  I took a quick look at the corporate research credit stats and came up with this chart, which shows dramatic increases over the last twenty years, with only a slight drop off during the financial crisis:

Annual Percentage Changes in Corporate Research Credit Claims for Tax Years 1990-2009, in millions; source: IRS Statistics of Income (2012).

That's a lot of credits...a.k.a. tax expenditures.  Where is the chart that shows the economic growth attributable to these credits?  (Only kidding.  We know there is no such chart.)

Here's the raw data from the IRS website (Figure A: Annual Percentage Changes in Research Credit Claimants and Amounts for Tax Years 1990-2009):

Year	Number of Credit Claimants	Percentage Change	Credits Claimed (in milliions of dollars)	Percentage Change
2009	12,359	-3.0%	7,774	-6.4%
2008	12,736	1.5%	8,303	0.5%
2007	12,548	16.3%	8,260	13.0%
2006	10,788	-4.4%	7,311	14.9%
2005	11,290	10.2%	6,363	14.6%
2004	10,244	-1.2%	5,554	1.2%
2003	10,369	1.1%	5,488	-3.0%
2002	10,254	-1.3%	5,656	-11.0%
2001	10,389	-1.0%	6,356	-10.2%
2000	10,495	4.7%	7,079	34.0%
1999	10,020	1.7%	5,281	1.4%
1998	9,849	-7.7%	5,208	18.4%
1997	10,668	9.9%	4,398	106.1%
1996	9,709	23.3%	2,134	50.1%
1995	7,877	-13.9%	1,422	-41.3%
1994	9,150	-7.9%	2,423	30.5%
1993	9,933	28.2%	1,857	22.5%
1992	7,750	-13.9%	1,515	-4.4%
1991	9,001	3.5%	1,585	2.4%
1990	8,699		1,547

Check out the percentage change from 96 to 97 (orange highlight)!