Yes, that's how the trick works. Profit is revenue minus expenses. By increasing expenses, you decrease profit, and therefore tax. But it only works if you had a profit before, because the government doesn't pay you back tax when you lose money.

This is not how VAT usually works.

As a company you collect VAT from your customers and pay VAT to your suppliers.

Depending on the resulting balance, you will either give back the amount of surplus collected VAT to your country/state/whatever or you will be provided with VAT credit.

VAT collection is different from a profit tax or other taxes.