Uprooting the entrenched

Most economists favor the elimination of corporate income tax, and I too find double taxation of investors troubling. Being an election year, policy is always on mind and today I was pondering the likelihood of eliminating corporate income tax. Given the popularity of certain extremely liberal filmmakers in the country (Roger I'm thinking of you) I don't really see complete elimination of the corporate incoming tax happening anytime soon. So what could possibly be a good alternative?

Recently a few friends and I were discussing an article someone had read about how several oil companies, even thought they are making money hands over fists, are investing well above and beyond their net income in research and development (R&D). I have to admit I love R&D and feel that it is one of the most important parts of capitalism benefiting humanity. What if we could capture this idea and use it to effectively eliminate corporate income tax?

My morning shower brought to mind an idea. What if we were to give tax credits to companies for R&D? If were to allow companies to invest their corporate taxes into themselves rather than waste it on the inefficiencies of government spending, how much further would we become technologically? If companies were not able to invest their corporate taxes in R&D (I doubt few would) then let the government take over and invest it for them. This simple idea would effectively eliminate corporate taxes and double taxation while increasing R&D for the entire country by 35% of the market's collective net income.