FT社评：如何解开全球企业税困局？

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.

就企业税收而言，各国政府陷入了“逐底竞争”(race to the bottom)。随着技术对于所有经济领域变得越来越重要，创造经济价值的各个要素——知识产权、软件和计算能力——变得更具流动性。希望留住和吸引就业和投资的每个国家都会调整税收政策，以吸引这些无形(或者具有任何流动性的)资产。但局面并不稳定：无论现在哪个国家为企业提供最优惠的条件，似乎总有另外一个国家随时愿意提供更优惠的条件。

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.

其结果是跨国公司承担的税率稳步下降，而就在这个时候，收入紧张的政府致力于紧缩开支(例如英国)或者财政赤字达到历史高位(例如美国)或者两者兼而有之。

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.

英国《金融时报》对跨国公司实际税率的分析表明了这种不幸局面的影响。在金融危机爆发以来的十年间，9个行业中的10家最大上市公司报告的实际税率下降了9%(而同期个人税率平均出现了上涨)。实际上，2000年至2008年期间税率下降得更快。

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

科技和工业部门的税收下降幅度明显高于能源和原材料等资产流动性较差的行业。

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.

从长远来看，这种局面是不可持续的。像英国等国家以及一些国际组织——最明显的是经合组织(OECD)——已经在转移定价和特许权使用费等领域采取了行动。这是有意义的。但加强国家执法和深化国际协调的效果是有限的，因为它们不改变导致问题的一个根本原因，那就是：大多数税收制度都聚焦于产品的原产地，而不是客户的所在地。

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贸易体系中，“基于原产地”的税收制度更合理。但是，比如说谷歌(Google)搜索或Facebook信息流旁边的广告的原产地是哪儿?这个问题有很多可能的答案。但对于那些依靠知识产权创造价值的公司而言，最受青睐的答案通常是：税制最为优惠的地方。

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”的税收形式是收入税，包括意大利和法国在内的国家正在尝试这种税制。英国也可能这样做。这是一个坏主意。利润(而不是销售额)才是企业税的恰当课税目标，这主要是因为加大亏损公司的税负会适得其反。

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.

一个更好的选择是对利润征税，但要依据公司创造收入的地点来征收。可以根据销售发生地将公司的全球利润归入各个国家，以便征税。或者，每个国家都对企业发生在本地的销售收入征税，但是对企业发生在本地的费用给予税收抵免。如果大多数国家都使用后一种制度，那么从全球来看，其效果就是对发生在本地的利润征税。

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.

这两个税制都将对各个政府产生吸引力，因为它们应该会吸引投资：为其他国家的客户效力的工厂或服务器中心将不会在其母国被课税。如果一个大国采用了聪明的基于目的地的税收制度，那么效仿这种制度对其他国家而言将是有利的。当然，从原产地制度过渡到目的地制度可能会很困难，不会一帆风顺。这个过程将需要时间。但是，与我们现在的制度相比，它更有可能带来一个公正和稳定的全球税收制度。