《经济学人》封面文章：失踪的20万亿

本文来源于新浪财经　2013年02月23日
如果你把避税天堂定义为为了吸引非本地居民的资金而实行宽松的监管、低税率或零税率并提供保密的地方，那么全世界至少有50-60个这样的天堂。超过200万家企业聚集在那里，没有人确切知道有多少钱被隐藏起来，粗略估计至少有20万亿美元


　　导读：最新一期《经济学人》于2月正式出刊，本期封面文章是《失踪的20万亿》。一直以来各国一直都努力打击公司和个人的逃税行为，尤其在如今世界经济不景气，各国财政吃紧的时候。然而本文认为只打击是不够的，各国还应改革税收体系，降低企业所得税率。
　　享受文明所带来好处的人，必须准备付出应承担的代价，只有这样文明才能正常运转，所以绝大多数情况下逃税的企业和个人都不受欢迎。现如今世界各国都在勒紧裤腰带，因此他们讨伐避税天堂以及使用这些天堂人的声浪不断高涨。
　　在欧洲，人们把愤怒的焦点投向大公司。亚马逊和星巴克正面临消费者的抵制，因为它们通过做假账虚增在避税天堂的利润而减少其业务所在国的收益。英国首相卡梅伦已把如何应对企业避税作为G8峰会的主要议题。在美国，人们更关注避税的个人以及帮助他们的银行。国会通过的《外国帐户税收遵从法》要求外国金融机构公开其美国客户的信息。拥有海外资金很可能会变成政治负担。去年大选期间，共和党人严厉谴责罗姆尼在开曼群岛持有资产。现在奥巴马新提名的财政部长杰克-卢也因为与一支开曼群岛的基金有瓜葛而备受煎熬。
　　让富人承担其应付责任的雄心令人钦佩，但因此而进行的攻击不但虚伪还极具误导性。这也许是很好的民粹政治，但是各国领导若想让他们的国家变得更好，就必须在打扫自家后院的同时改革税收体制。
　　一般认为避税天堂会是一座风景迷人的小岛，但事实上离岸金融和地域没有任何关系。如果你把避税天堂定义为为了吸引非本地居民的资金而实行宽松的监管、低税率或零税率并提供保密的地方，那么全世界至少有50-60个这样的天堂。超过200万家企业，数万家银行、基金、保险公司聚集在那里，没有人确切知道有多少钱被隐藏起来，但粗略估计至少也有20万亿美元。
　　并不是所有的避税天堂都是阳光下的小岛，事实上有些还不在国外。奥巴马很喜欢拿阿格兰屋说事，把它说成是避税系统的缩影，因为这座位于开曼群岛的建筑是18000家公司的官方总部。然而阿格兰屋于特拉华州相比简直不值一提，那里有945000家公司，其中绝大部分是为了逃税而设的空壳公司。迈阿密是一个巨大离岸银行中心，它为来自新兴市场的储户提供服务，帮助这些储户免受本国政府的监管并逃避惩罚。伦敦金融城从上世纪50年代起就开始倡导离岸货币交易，现在仍致力于协助非本国居民躲避各种规章制度。英国的空壳公司和有限合伙企业时常会有犯罪行为，而在管制洗钱问题上，伦敦并不比开曼群岛好多少。其他欧盟国家也正成为全球避税的据点，很多公司把利润转移到位于低税率的卢森堡、爱尔兰和荷兰的子公司。
　　富裕国家的金融中心和开曼群岛都需要改革，而且还要区分非法行为(洗钱和赤裸裸的逃税)与合法行为(粉饰报表避税)之间的区别。打击非法行为最好的武器就是增加透明度，也就是收集更多的信息并充分共享。多亏美国的《外国帐户税收遵从法》，一些小的离岸中心已经开始给客户母国提供更多的数据，尽管美国仍然对是否给那些本国居民在迈阿密有存款的拉丁美洲国家提供信息而犹豫不决，但这必将发生改变。为打击使用名义股东或名义董事来隐秘资金来源，每个人都该做出更大的努力，他们应该确保收集到每个公司真实拥有者的信息并不断更新，当调查者发现可疑行为时能够轻易获得这些信息。尽管公开的成本很高，但是这样做利大于弊，因为阳光可以照射到金融体系的每一个阴暗角落。
　　透明度有助于减缓大规模的企业避税行为。星巴克事件表明，企业为减少税款而转移资金将影响他们的声誉。消费者知道关于逃税的信息越多，效果就越好。
　　然而道德压力并不能解决所有问题：消费者会厌倦抗议活动，而如果企业的行为合法，政府也不该抨击企业减少纳税的努力。最终必须改革税收体系。政府应该让企业利用内部价格(转移资金)的方式避税变得更加困难，企业应该在其经营所在地纳税。包括美国在内的一些联邦经济体已经开始阻止企业利用各州制度之间的差异进行避税，国际上也需要一个类似的协议。
　　政府还需要降低企业税率。敲诈企业是无效的，因为它们会把负担转嫁给别人。最好是直接向最终支付者征税，不管是资本家、工人还是消费者。企业税也不能创造多少收入，在美国企业税不到GDP的2%(全部税收收入的8.5%)，英国不到2.7%。废除企业税当然也有问题，这会刺激富人把钱全部转入企业。但是大范围内实行更低的税率，再配以警觉的税务当局，将更有效率，或许还能筹集到更多的税收。在富裕国家里，美国公司海外收入的企业所得税率最高，因此它们也最有逃税的动机。
　　这些改革不会一蹴而就。降低企业税率的政府会被指责向资本家的勒索低头。从伦敦金融城到特拉华州这样的金融中心或企业聚集地也会同限制它们的政策作斗争。但是如果政治家真的想对消失的20万亿美元征税，他们必须这样做。(鹿城/编译)

Tax havensThe missing $20 trillionHow to stop companies and people dodging tax, in Delaware as well as Grand Cayman
Feb 16th 2013 |From the print edition

CIVILISATION works only if those who enjoy its benefits are also prepared to pay their share of the costs. People and companies that avoid tax are therefore unpopular at the best of times, so it is not surprising that when governments and individuals everywhere are scrimping to pay their bills, attacks are mounting on tax havens and those that use them.

In Europe the anger has focused on big firms. Amazon and Starbucks have faced consumer boycotts for using clever accounting tricks to book profits in tax havens while reducing their bills in the countries where they do business. David Cameron has put tackling corporate tax-avoidance at the top of the G8 agenda. America has taken aim at tax-dodging individuals and the banks that help them. Congress has passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which forces foreign financial firms to disclose their American clients. Any whiff of offshore funds has become a political liability. During last year’s presidential campaign Mitt Romney was excoriated by Democrats for his holdings in the Cayman Islands. Now Jack Lew, Barack Obama’s nominee for treasury secretary, is under fire for once having an interest in a Cayman fund.

Getting rich people to pay their dues is an admirable ambition, but this attack is both hypocritical and misguided. It may be good populist politics, but leaders who want to make their countries work better should focus instead on cleaning up their own back yards and reforming their tax systems.

Dodgy of Delaware

The archetypal tax haven may be a palm-fringed island, but as our special report this week makes clear, there is nothing small about offshore finance. If you define a tax haven as a place that tries to attract non-resident funds by offering light regulation, low (or zero) taxation and secrecy, then the world has 50-60 such havens. These serve as domiciles for more than 2m companies and thousands of banks, funds and insurers. Nobody really knows how much money is stashed away: estimates vary from way below to way above $20 trillion.

Not all these havens are in sunny climes; indeed not all are technically offshore. Mr Obama likes to cite Ugland House, a building in the Cayman Islands that is officially home to 18,000 companies, as the epitome of a rigged system. But Ugland House is not a patch on Delaware (population 917,092), which is home to 945,000 companies, many of which are dodgy shells. Miami is a massive offshore banking centre, offering depositors from emerging markets the sort of protection from prying eyes that their home countries can no longer get away with. The City of London, which pioneered offshore currency trading in the 1950s, still specialises in helping non-residents get around the rules. British shell companies and limited-liability partnerships regularly crop up in criminal cases. London is no better than the Cayman Islands when it comes to controls against money laundering. Other European Union countries are global hubs for a different sort of tax avoidance: companies divert profits to brass-plate subsidiaries in low-tax Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands.

Reform should thus focus on rich-world financial centres as well as Caribbean islands, and should distinguish between illegal activities (laundering and outright tax evasion) and legal ones (fancy accounting to avoid tax). The best weapon against illegal activities is transparency, which boils down to collecting more information and sharing it better. Thanks in large part to America’s FATCA, small offshore centres are handing over more data to their clients’ home countries—while America remains shamefully reluctant to share information with the Latin American countries whose citizens hold deposits in Miami. That must change. Everyone could do more to crack down on the use of nominee shareholders and directors to hide the provenance of money. And they should make sure that information about the true “beneficial” owners of companies is collected, kept up-to-date and made more readily available to investigators in cases of suspected wrongdoing. There are costs to openness, but they are outweighed by the benefits of shining light on the shady corners of finance.

Want more tax? Lower the tax rate

Transparency will also help curb the more aggressive forms of corporate tax avoidance. As Starbucks’s experience has shown, companies that shift money around to minimise their tax bills endanger their reputations. The more information consumers have about such dodges, the better.

Moral pressure is not the whole answer, though: consumers get bored with campaigns, and governments should not bash companies for trying to reduce their tax bills, if they do so legally. In the end, tax systems must be reformed. Governments need to make it harder for companies to use internal (“transfer”) pricing to avoid tax. Companies should be made to book activity where it actually takes place. Several federal economies, including America, already prevent companies from exploiting the differences between states’ rules. An international agreement along those lines is needed.

Governments also need to lower corporate tax rates. Tapping companies is inefficient: firms pass the burden on to others. Better to tax directly those who ultimately pay—whether owners of capital, workers or consumers. Nor do corporate taxes raise much money: barely more than 2% of GDP (8.5% of tax revenue) in America and 2.7% in Britain. Abolishing corporate tax would create its own problems, as it would encourage rich people to turn themselves into companies. But a lower rate on a broader base, combined with vigilance by the tax authorities, would be more efficient and would probably raise more revenue: America, whose companies face one of the rich world’s highest corporate-tax rates on their worldwide income, also has some of the most energetic tax-avoiders.

These reforms would not be easy. Governments that try to lower corporate tax rates will be accused of caving in to blackmailing capitalists. Financial centres and incorporation hubs, from the City of London to Delaware, will fight any attempt to tighten their rules. But if politicians really want to tax the missing $20 trillion, that’s where they should start.