{"id":3266,"date":"2023-02-09T05:33:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T05:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationisrael.org.il\/en\/?post_type=report&p=3266"},"modified":"2023-08-15T15:05:48","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T15:05:48","slug":"high-tech-in-israel-2018","status":"publish","type":"report","link":"https:\/\/innovationisrael.org.il\/en\/report\/high-tech-in-israel-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"High Tech in Israel 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The global tech industry is gearing up for a new world order that has an impact on Israel\u2019s high-tech industry as well. What changed in the global economy of 2018, and what have this past years\u2019 industrial trends been in terms of funding, technology, and human capital?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tech industries today are more global than ever before. Capital, people, services and products are traversing borders at a dizzying rate, and tech giants have no less of an impact on citizens than national governments do. The Israeli high-tech sector, which operates within a small and open market, is particularly global by nature: most of its industry competitors and clients are scattered across the globe, it is highly involved with multinational companies and foreign investors, and it performs most of its transactions in foreign currency. This reality creates economies of scale, but it also makes it particularly vulnerable to changes in the global economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recent years have been marked by global economic and technological trends that have worked in the Israeli high-tech sector\u2019s favor: The global growth rate has increased, new tech markets have opened, and vast capital has continued to fuel innovative companies with accelerated growth. Accordingly, as of the publication date of this report, the performance of Israel\u2019s high-tech sector in 2018 has been outstanding.1<\/a><\/sup>On the publication date of this report, final data on 2018 is not yet available. Therefore, data cited in the chapter indicates trends in the first three quarters of the year. Some of the diagrams provide an assessment of 2018 as a whole, based on the first three quarters of the year and on previous years<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n However, dramatic developments in the global economy in 2018 are reshuffling the deck \u2013 namely, the US\u2019 retreat from the globalization trend, and the tightened regulations on the tech companies\u2019 activities in developed countries. The global tech industry is laying the groundwork for a new world order which has yet to stabilize and its future impact on the Israeli high-tech sector remains unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this chapter, we will analyze key developments in the global and local high-tech sector over the course of the past year. In the first section, we will describe changes in the global economy in 2018 that are slated to be gamechangers for the Israeli high-tech sector, and we will review their ramifications. We will then examine key trends in the Israeli sector over the past year in terms of economy, funding, technology, and human capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the past two decades, the rapid penetration of digital technologies has been gradually creating a parallel borderless world. In this world, fast communication between people situated on opposite sides of the globe is now taken for granted. Consumers can benefit from products and services offered by countries that have no physical presence in their country, and development teams of different countries can work together and concurrently on innovative digital products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lately, however, governments worldwide have been reminding the global high-tech sector that it still operates on a country-by-country basis. Countries have begun to clash with tech companies and with one another over their share of the digital world\u2019s taxation pie. This trend is upending the balance in the global tech industry. While it could potentially lead to improved equilibrium in the future, it is giving rise in the meantime to a great deal of uncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2016, the OECD released BEPS guidelines to address the floating profits of data-rich companies to tax shelters around the world, and encouraged the registration of intellectual property in the same country where it is being developed. By releasing these guidelines, the OECD aspired for tax harmonization that would guarantee the taxation of real economic activity in the location where value is created. Indeed, over the course of 2017, many countries, including Israel, began setting the groundwork for adopting these guidelines, and worked on updating their tax environment in order to appear more attractive to tech companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2018, however, Trump\u2019s Tax<\/a> Cuts and Jobs Act reform significantly transformed the existing structure. The reform includes far-reaching changes to the US taxation system that are designed, among other objectives, to draw economic activity of multinational US companies, including tech companies, back to the US. The most notable measures enacted with these companies involve a dramatic corporate tax cut and the issuing of GILTI and BEAT taxes.2<\/a><\/sup>BEAT (Base Erosion and Anti-Abuse Tax) is a tax primarily applied to certain intercompany transactions issued to related foreign parties charged as an expense and deductible in the US, and to additional payments that are not included in the acquisition cost in the American company\u2019s records. GILTI (Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income) is a 10% tax on supernormal profits of CFCs (Controlled Foreign Corporations) where companies can receive a credit on up to 80% of foreign income<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n These are slated to boost the tax liabilities of international companies that have reciprocal ties with the US such as companies operating in the US, companies owned by US residents, and companies that own US-affiliated companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The impact of these changes on Israeli high-tech companies is expected to be significant, because these companies are global in nature and have close ties with the US. The Israeli government recognizes the need to update its tax environment in order to remain attractive for both startups and large companies, and the government is examining ways to relieve their tax burden anticipated from this reform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While tech companies across the globe are examining where to position themselves in order to benefit from optimal taxation conditions, another earthquake was caused this year by the OECD3<\/a><\/sup>OECD. (2018). Tax Challenges Arising from Digitalization<\/span> when it announced that economic value from digital activity is not only determined by the location of a company\u2019s core activity (such as R&D), it is also determined by the location where digital information is created, meaning the location where users are situated. Tech companies around the world are slated to be affected by this approach: companies operating in one country while providing digital services to users located in another country, as well as companies that gather digital information by use of a product or a service in order to generate revenue.4<\/a><\/sup>Ibid<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n The OECD has yet to establish clear guidelines for the implementation of this approach, but the European Commission has been quick to adopt it. As a temporary solution, it has proposed the imposition of a direct tax on revenue generated from digital activity where users or clients play a key role in creating value (DST \u2013 Digital Service Tax).5<\/a><\/sup>According to the European Commission, revenue subject to DST includes revenue generated from online advertising, revenue generated from digital mediation, and revenue generated from the sale of users\u2019 digital information. The tax would be imposed on companies with an annual revenue of over \u20ac750 million with annual taxable revenue of over \u20ac50 million (Source: European Parliamentary Research Service, 2018) <\/span>Those hit hardest by this tax would be large multinational companies \u2013 primarily US companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since this proposal, if adopted, would apply to all EU member states, the tech giants\u2019 contention over a piece of the tech giants\u2019 tax pie is increasingly shifting from an argument between tech giants and European countries, to an argument between the US and European countries. Thus far, in the spirit of the EU proposal, England has already announced that it would levy a 2% DST on revenue generated from the digital activity of British users, and Hungary and Italy have announced that they would impose similar taxes as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Israeli Tax Authority has also adopted the OECD\u2019s approach to taxing revenue based on local digital users. The authority\u2019s circular on \u201cthe taxation of foreign corporate activity via the internet\u201d6<\/a><\/sup>Israeli Tax Authority, 2016<\/span>(published in 2016) states the transformations evolving in the digital economic environment, and details incidences wherein services that multinational companies provide to users via the internet will be subject to taxation in Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alongside these developments on taxation, the trade war between the US and China that began in 2018 is an expression of government reaction to tech globalization, adding to a sense of unease in the global tech industry. In the context of US claims against Chinese practices on global trade, particularly on intellectual property and technology, over the course of 2018, the US imposed tariffs on a total of $250 billion dollars on goods imported from China, including tech products.7<\/a><\/sup>Hanemann, T. (2018, June 19). Arrested Development: Chinese FDI in the US in 1H 2018. Rhodium Group <\/span>China, of course, retaliated by imposing tariffs on US products, with Chinese investments in the US dropping by roughly 90% in the first half of 2018 in comparison to the first half of 2017, reaching its lowest rate of investment in the past seven years.8<\/a><\/sup>For comprehensive methodology of the high-tech index for 2017: Israel Innovation Authority website<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n The upheaval in trade relations between these two tech superpowers could potentially upend the tech world as a whole. While many are expressing concerns, it could also create business opportunities for smaller countries like Israel, whose impact on the global order is minimal. Indeed, in light of the close ties that the Israeli industry has with the US market, and in light of the strengthening of ties between Israeli and Chinese innovation systems, Israel is following these developments closely as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The developments described are projected to make their mark on the global tech industry and on Israel\u2019s high-tech sector in the near future. As of late 2018, however, players in the network of Israeli innovation who might be impacted by these developments \u2013 especially multinational companies, early-stage startups, and growing startups \u2013 are still on the fence and contemplating their next move. In the meantime, the Israeli ecosystem is continuing to flourish, and the trend of maturation and stabilization that we have been reporting on in recent years is continuing to intensify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This account can be seen in the 2017 high-tech index and in interim data on 2018, as will be illustrated in this chapter. The high-tech index (see diagram 1), a synthetic index created by the Strategy and Economy Division of the Innovation Authority, is comprised of two sub- indices that depict the position of two distinct groups \u2013 startup companies, and mature companies.9 The index points to excellent performance in the two groups for 2017, but in the startup group, performance is lower than its peak in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDigital borders in a global world The rules of the game are changing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Israeli high-tech in 2017-2018 \u2013 Decline in early stages and a boost in growth stages<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n