Wow. The inefficiency of having to dedicate an employees to that paperwork (and probably the same manpower on the government side to receive it and take action) make it sounds like a welfare/job program.

Would be way more efficient to simply drop the tax rate and make these 2 positions redundant, freeing more money for actual R&D.

The post-thesis bit is interesting: How is it the taxpayer's job to finance that? I get funding the thesis themselves but why should a company get funding for hiring someone who completed one? Shouldn't the thesis make the employee more valuable thus negating the need for this welfare?