FT社評：如何解開全球企業(yè)稅困局？

On corporate taxation, national governments are trapped in a race to the bottom. As technology becomes more important to all sectors of the economy, the factors that create economic value — intellectual property, software, computing power — become more mobile. Each country, hoping to retain and attract jobs and investment, adjusts tax policy to attract these intangible (or at any rate mobile) assets. But the situation is unstable: there always seems to be another country ready to undercut whoever is currently offering companies the sweetest deal.

就企業(yè)稅收而言，各國政府陷入了“逐底競爭”(race to the bottom)。隨著技術(shù)對于所有經(jīng)濟(jì)領(lǐng)域變得越來越重要，創(chuàng)造經(jīng)濟(jì)價值的各個要素——知識產(chǎn)權(quán)、軟件和計算能力——變得更具流動性。希望留住和吸引就業(yè)和投資的每個國家都會調(diào)整稅收政策，以吸引這些無形(或者具有任何流動性的)資產(chǎn)。但局面并不穩(wěn)定：無論現(xiàn)在哪個國家為企業(yè)提供最優(yōu)惠的條件，似乎總有另外一個國家隨時愿意提供更優(yōu)惠的條件。

The result is a steady erosion of tax rates on multinational companies — at a time when revenue-strapped government are committed to austerity (the UK, for example) or running historic deficits (the US) or both.

其結(jié)果是跨國公司承擔(dān)的稅率穩(wěn)步下降，而就在這個時候，收入緊張的政府致力于緊縮開支(例如英國)或者財政赤字達(dá)到歷史高位(例如美國)或者兩者兼而有之。

A Financial Times analysis of the effective tax rates of multinational corporations shows the effects of this unhappy situation. In the ten years since the financial crisis, the reported effective tax rates at the ten biggest public companies in nine sectors fell 9 per cent (over the same period, tax rates for individuals have risen, on average). This is actually a slower rate of decline than in the years between 2000 and 2008.

英國《金融時報》對跨國公司實際稅率的分析表明了這種不幸局面的影響。在金融危機爆發(fā)以來的十年間，9個行業(yè)中的10家最大上市公司報告的實際稅率下降了9%(而同期個人稅率平均出現(xiàn)了上漲)。實際上，2000年至2008年期間稅率下降得更快。

The decline was more pronounced in the tech and industrial sectors than in those where assets are less mobile, such as energy and materials.

科技和工業(yè)部門的稅收下降幅度明顯高于能源和原材料等資產(chǎn)流動性較差的行業(yè)。

The situation is not sustainable in the long run. Both individual countries such as the UK and international organisations — most prominently the OECD — have taken action on areas such as transfer pricing and royalty payments. This is meaningful. But tougher national enforcement and deeper international co-ordination can only go so far, because they do not change one of the root causes. This is the fact that most tax systems focus on where a product comes from, not where the customer is.

從長遠(yuǎn)來看，這種局面是不可持續(xù)的。像英國等國家以及一些國際組織——最明顯的是經(jīng)合組織(OECD)——已經(jīng)在轉(zhuǎn)移定價和特許權(quán)使用費等領(lǐng)域采取了行動。這是有意義的。但加強國家執(zhí)法和深化國際協(xié)調(diào)的效果是有限的，因為它們不改變導(dǎo)致問題的一個根本原因，那就是：大多數(shù)稅收制度都聚焦于產(chǎn)品的原產(chǎn)地，而不是客戶的所在地。

An “origin-based” system made more sense in a world trade system based mostly on goods. But what is the origin of, say, an advertisement that runs next to a Google search or a Facebook news feed? There are many possible answers to this question. For companies that create value from intellectual property, however, the favoured answer usually turns out to be: wherever the tax regime is friendliest.

在基本上基于商品的世界貿(mào)易體系中，“基于原產(chǎn)地”的稅收制度更合理。但是，比如說谷歌(Google)搜索或Facebook信息流旁邊的廣告的原產(chǎn)地是哪兒?這個問題有很多可能的答案。但對于那些依靠知識產(chǎn)權(quán)創(chuàng)造價值的公司而言，最受青睞的答案通常是：稅制最為優(yōu)惠的地方。

The crudest form of “destination-based” taxation is a revenue tax, which countries including Italy and France are experimenting with. The UK might do so as well. This is a bad idea. Profit, not sales, is the proper target for corporation tax, not least because increasing the tax burden on unprofitable companies is counterproductive.

最原始的“基于目的地”的稅收形式是收入稅，包括意大利和法國在內(nèi)的國家正在嘗試這種稅制。英國也可能這樣做。這是一個壞主意。利潤(而不是銷售額)才是企業(yè)稅的恰當(dāng)課稅目標(biāo)，這主要是因為加大虧損公司的稅負(fù)會適得其反。

A better option to consider is to tax profits but according to where companies generate their revenues. Companies’ global profitability could be attributed to countries for tax purposes according to where their sales take place. Alternatively, each country could charge a tax on local sales, but give companies tax relief for the costs incurred locally. If most countries used the latter system, the global effect would approximate a tax on local profits.

一個更好的選擇是對利潤征稅，但要依據(jù)公司創(chuàng)造收入的地點來征收?？梢愿鶕?jù)銷售發(fā)生地將公司的全球利潤歸入各個國家，以便征稅。或者，每個國家都對企業(yè)發(fā)生在本地的銷售收入征稅，但是對企業(yè)發(fā)生在本地的費用給予稅收抵免。如果大多數(shù)國家都使用后一種制度，那么從全球來看，其效果就是對發(fā)生在本地的利潤征稅。

Both systems will appeal to governments because they should attract investment: a factory or server centre that caters to customers in other countries would not be taxed at home. And if a large country adopted a smart destination-based system, it would be in the interest of others to follow. A transition from origin- to destination-based systems could be difficult and uneven, of course. It will take time. But it has a better chance at leading to a just and stable global tax regime than what we have now.

這兩個稅制都將對各個政府產(chǎn)生吸引力，因為它們應(yīng)該會吸引投資：為其他國家的客戶效力的工廠或服務(wù)器中心將不會在其母國被課稅。如果一個大國采用了聰明的基于目的地的稅收制度，那么效仿這種制度對其他國家而言將是有利的。當(dāng)然，從原產(chǎn)地制度過渡到目的地制度可能會很困難，不會一帆風(fēng)順。這個過程將需要時間。但是，與我們現(xiàn)在的制度相比，它更有可能帶來一個公正和穩(wěn)定的全球稅收制度。