行车事故统计报告制度:拒绝企业贪婪

作者：Marian Wright Edelman

President, Children's Defense Fund

保护儿童基金会主席

Posted: 10/28/11 05:05 PM ET 

2011年10月28日，美国东部时间，下午5：05

Repatriation. It's a word many schoolchildren probably haven't yet learned to define or even seen very often outside of spelling bees. But when it comes to corporate taxes, repatriation is the cornerstone of an idea that has the potential to severely hurt millions of children and parents and widen the already historic and unconscionable gap between the rich and the poor.

“调运回国”这个词，许多小学生大概还没学过，甚至都不常见于拼写比赛之外。不过谈到公司税收政策，这项措施将可能成为严重损害百万儿童及其家长利益的罪魁祸首，并将进一步拉大已是前所未见且有失公允的贫富差距。

In its simplest definition, repatriation is bringing something back to its country of origin—returning it back home. One of the solutions to the jobs crisis being proposed by some of our Congressional leaders and lobbied for aggressively by some of the country's richest corporations is a rehash of an old experiment: enacting a repatriation tax holiday that would temporarily allow U.S.-based multinational companies to bring home profits they currently hold overseas at a 5.25 percent tax rate, instead of the usual 35 percent corporate tax rate. Under current tax law, multinational companies generally pay no U.S. corporate taxes on foreign income until those profits are brought back to the U.S. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) explains, “This effectively allows such firms to defer payment of the U.S. corporate income tax on their overseas profits indefinitely, even though they may obtain an immediate tax deduction for many expenses incurred in supporting the same overseas investments. This can produce a negative U.S. corporate income tax—that is, a net government subsidy—for overseas operations. In addition to causing the federal government to lose tax revenue, this structure gives multinationals a significant incentive to shift economic activity—as well as their reported profits—overseas.”

简而言之，调运回国就是把某样东西带回原产国——即拿回家。一些国会领袖提出以此作为解决就业危机的一种途径，其背后还有某些美国最赚钱企业的积极游说，而这实为历史的重复：引入回流资金减税政策，将暂时允许美国跨国企业以5.25％的税率把海外收益调回国内，而不是征收通常35％的公司税。在现行税法体制下，跨过企业在调回海外收益之间，基本不用为此缴纳国内公司税。预算和政策优先中心（CBPP）解释到：“这相当于允许此类企业无限期拖欠针对海外营收的国内公司税，甚至还让他们享受涉及海外投资的多种营运管理费的直接扣税。”如此就产成了针对海外业务——基于政府净补贴——的公司税倒贴现象。这种结构不仅让联邦政府税收蒙受损失，还大大激励了跨国企业将经济活动移师海外——还有其账面收益。

The argument for the repatriation holiday is that giving corporations a huge incentive to bring profits back right now—in the form of an enormous tax break—would bring billions of dollars back to the U.S. economy that would be reinvested and provide a big stimulus to our economy. Corporate proponents and their Congressional allies argue this will create desperately needed jobs.

主张回流资金减税的观点认为，以大幅减税的形式给企业一个巨大的利好刺激来促使他们立即回调海外资金，将给美国带来百亿美元的资本，这些资金可用以再投资且能为美国经济带来巨大的刺激作用。企业支持者和他们在国会的盟友声称这将会创造目前所急需的工作机会。

But the last time this was tried, under a 2004 Bush Administration plan, it didn't work out that way. Instead, as CBPP points out, “The evidence shows that firms mostly used the repatriated earnings not to invest in U.S. jobs or growth but for purposes that Congress sought to prohibit, such as repurchasing their own stock and paying bigger dividends to their shareholders. Moreover, many firms actually laid off large numbers of U.S. workers even as they reaped multi-billion-dollar benefits from the tax holiday and passed them on to shareholders.” Many economists and scholars believe that if corporations get their way and get another repatriation holiday, history will repeat itself—and once again the corporations and their shareholders, not American workers, families, and children, will be the only winners.

其实布什政府早在2004年已实施过类似的计划，结果却事与愿违。CBPP指出：“反而有迹象表明企业主要是利用这些回流资金开展了一些国会试图制止的活动，如回购本公司股票或提高分红数额，而不是以投资促就业、促增长。更有甚者，许多企业一边从减税政策中斩获亿万美元再向股东分红，一边还在大量裁员。”许多经济学家和学者相信，如果这次企业呼吁回流资金减税的阴谋再度得逞，历史将重演——企业及其股东将再次成为唯一的赢家，而不是美国工薪族，普通家庭或孩子们。

The nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated the holiday would cost the federal government about $80 billion over ten years in lost revenue. The Economic Policy Institute's Andrew Fieldhouse puts it this way: “While there are numerous job creation proposals that would meaningfully lower unemployment, some lawmakers are pushing counterproductive policies disguised as job creation packages. The proposed repeat of the corporate tax repatriation holiday is one such wolf in sheep's clothing.” When the nation is already facing a jobs crisis and many Congressional leaders are threatening to slash nutrition, child care, and other safety net programs children and families rely on as a means of balancing the budget, revisiting a failed idea instead of coming up with real solutions and real jobs is a threat children and families and our country cannot afford. As the Occupy Wall Street protestors are shouting, let's “just say no to corporate greed” and to Congresspeople who continue to raid from the poor and children to curry favor and campaign contributions from the rich.

国会无党派税收联合委员会预测该减税方案将在10年间给联邦政府造成800亿美元的税收损失。经济政策研究所的Andrew Fieldhouse如此形容：“虽然有很多能真正降低失业率的岗位创造计划可供选择，但部分议员还是力推那些伪装成就业刺激计划的反向政策。重提回流资金减税就是这种批着羊皮的狼。”当国家已经陷入就业危机，且许多政客叫嚣着要削减儿童和家庭赖以平衡开支的营养补助、儿童保育和其他安全网计划之时，重复一个失败的馊主意而不是思考真正的解决方案，创造真正的工作机会，将是美国儿童和家庭，乃至国家本身所不能承受之痛。正如占领华尔街示威者们的呐喊，让我们“拒绝企业贪婪”，还有那些劫贫济富、拍马奉承、为政治献金委身富豪的国会议员。