愛爾蘭成爲蘋果避稅天堂

A few weeks ago, the governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval, signed into law a tax “incentive package” that his administration had negotiated with Tesla, the electric car company. Tesla is planning to build a giant factory to manufacture the batteries that power its cars, and Nevada was one of five states that were competing fiercely to land the plant.

幾個星期前，內華達州政府與電動汽車公司特斯拉(Tesla)談成的“一攬子稅收激勵方案”，經州長布賴恩·桑多瓦爾(Brian Sandoval)簽署生效。特斯拉正準備建造一家爲其電動車產品生產電池的巨型工廠。包括內華達在內，共有五個州爲了讓工廠在本地落戶而展開了激烈的競爭。

It ultimately offered a staggering $1.25 billion package of tax breaks that includes sales tax abatements for the next two decades, 10 years of property tax abatements and nearly $200 million in transferable tax credits that Tesla could sell to Nevada companies that wanted to lower their own tax bills. Although Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, insisted that at least one of the other states had offered an even richer tax package, it is clear that the tax breaks Nevada came up with played an important role in landing the Tesla factory.

最終，內達華州提供了一項總額高達12.5億美元（約合76.7億元人民幣）的稅收優惠計劃，其中包括未來20年的銷售稅減免、10年的不動產稅減免，以及將近2億美元的可轉讓稅收抵免額——特拉斯可以將其倒賣給想要少繳稅款的州內公司。顯然，內達華州所提供的稅收優惠，是它拿下特斯拉電池生產廠的重要助力，儘管公司的首席執行官埃隆·馬斯克(Elon Musk)堅稱，其他參與競爭的州中，至少有一個承諾過更爲慷慨的稅收優惠政策。

In reading this week about Apple’s tax dealings in Ireland, I found myself reflecting on the tax deals that American states cut all the time with companies they are trying to lure. It’s not all that different. In a sense, what Ireland has been doing is the global equivalent of what the states do to attract business. And that is especially true in the case of Apple.

本週，看着與蘋果公司(Apple)在愛爾蘭的稅務安排有關的報道，我不由得想起了美國各州和它們極力延攬的企業之間頻頻達成的稅收協議。兩者並沒有多大差別。在某種意義上，愛爾蘭和美國各州爲了招商而做着同樣的事情，只不過愛爾蘭上升到了國際層面。在蘋果的事情上，尤其如此。

Ireland has long had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe; it’s currently 12.5 percent. That low rate, the Irish believe, helped attract industry and create the country’s boom in the years leading up to the financial crisis.

長期以來，愛爾蘭的企業稅稅率在歐洲國家中位居下游——目前爲12.5%。愛爾蘭認爲，在金融危機爆發前的那些年，這種低稅率在吸引外資企業、推動本國經濟繁榮方面功不可沒。

But it did a lot more than simply offer a low corporate tax rate. It set itself up as a kind of European tax haven, so that companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others could, in effect, buy an Irish address to which they could transfer a great deal of their intellectual property and route profits accrued elsewhere through the Irish subsidiary. This is called transfer pricing. Companies could also take advantage of other loopholes in the Irish tax code to get their tax bill considerably lower than 12.5 percent.

然而，愛爾蘭絕非只是提供低稅率而已。它把自己打造成了歐洲的避稅天堂，允許谷歌(Google)、Facebook和微軟(Microsoft)等公司實際上僅需買下一個愛爾蘭的地址，就能通過該國的子公司把應計入其他地方的大量知識產權和常規收益轉移過來。這一招被稱爲“轉移定價”。企業還可以鑽愛爾蘭稅法的其他一些空子，讓自己所承擔的實際稅負遠低於12.5%。

As The New York Times reported in a groundbreaking article two years ago — and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations confirmed last year — Apple takes advantage of every tax break Ireland offers. But according to the European Union’s competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, in a letter released this week, the company went a step further in its dealings with the Irish tax authorities.

就像《紐約時報》在兩年前發表的一篇突破性文章中報道的那樣，蘋果公司充分利用了愛爾蘭提供的每一項稅收優惠。參議院常設調查小組委員會(Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations)去年也對此予以了確認。不過，歐盟負責競爭事務的委員華金·阿爾穆尼亞(Joaquín Almunia)在本週公佈的信件中指出，在與愛爾蘭稅務部門進行納稅安排時，蘋果公司做得更進一步。

In 1991, Apple essentially negotiated how much tax the company would pay. It did so after it had explicitly “mentioned by way of background information that Apple was now the largest employer in the Cork area with 1,000 direct employees and 500 persons engaged on a sub-contract basis,” again according to Almunia’s letter. Apple also acknowledged that it had “no scientific basis” for the amount of tax it was willing to pay. The deal was then “reverse engineered” so that Apple’s profits would wind up in the range that would yield the suggested taxes. (Apple now has 4,000 people working in its Cork manufacturing plant, the only Apple-owned factory in Europe; its tax deal with Ireland was reworked in 2007.)

1991年，蘋果實質上通過談判確定了公司應該繳納的稅額。阿爾穆尼亞在信中表示，公司在“背景信息中明確提到，蘋果目前是科克地區最大的僱主，擁有1000名直屬僱員，以及500名簽署分包合同的人員”。此後，雙方進行了談判。蘋果公司也承認，對於願意繳納的稅額，他們並“沒有科學依據”。這項協議後來被“反推”，如此一來，蘋果最終的利潤會剛好落在需要繳納相應稅率的區間。（蘋果位於科克的製造工廠目前擁有4000名員工，是它在歐洲唯一的歸自身所有的工廠；蘋果與愛爾蘭在2007年重新修訂了稅務協議。）

With the recent outcry over corporate tax loopholes, the E.U. decided to take a closer look at some of its members’ tax dealings that had been flagged in the media. In addition to Apple and Ireland, it is looking at Fiat in Luxembourg and Starbucks in the Netherlands. And while the Apple case is far from over — indeed, both Apple and Ireland insist they did nothing wrong — Almunia, at least, has concluded that Apple’s tax deal with Ireland amounts to “state aid.” Under European Commission rules, countries are not allowed to subsidize companies in ways that give them advantages over others in the country.

由於企業的稅收漏洞最近引起了軒然大波，歐盟決定對媒體揭露的某些歐盟成員國的稅收安排進行仔細審查。除了蘋果與愛爾蘭的做法，歐盟還在調查菲亞特(Fiat)在盧森堡，以及星巴克(Starbucks)在荷蘭的稅務安排。雖然蘋果的案件還遠遠沒有結束——實際上蘋果和愛爾蘭堅稱它們不存在違法行爲——但至少阿爾穆尼亞已經斷定，蘋果與愛爾蘭的稅務協議相當於“國家補貼”。歐盟委員會的規定禁止各個國家以提供優惠條件的方式對企業進行補貼，這樣會使一些公司比另一些公司更有優勢。

Here then is one difference between what transpires in the U.S. and what transpires in Europe: The E.U. has rules intended to prevent nations from giving unjustified tax breaks to companies. “In Europe there is now a mechanism to prevent the most harmful abuses” of the tax code, said Matthew Gardner, the executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It has taken a while — and required an outraged public to spur it on — but the E.U. finally seems intent on curbing excesses like Apple’s tax deal in Ireland.

美國的情況與歐洲的情況存在一個差異：歐盟制定了相關規定，以防止國家給予公司不合理的稅收優惠。稅收與經濟政策研究所(Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy)執行理事馬修·加德納(Matthew Gardner)說，“歐洲現在存在一種機制，來防止危害性最強的規避稅法的行爲。”走到這一步花了一些時間，也需要憤怒的公衆進一步推動，但歐盟最終似乎下定了決心，要遏制一些過分的行爲，比如蘋果與愛爾蘭達成的稅務協議。

In truth, most tax subsidies don’t make much sense — not for countries and certainly not for states. “There is a lot of work that shows that tax subsidies vastly overpay for the jobs they create,” said Edward Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California and the author of the recent book “We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money.”

實際上，大多數稅收補貼對於國家，特別是對於各州來說，並沒有多大意義。南加州大學(University of Southern California)法學教授愛德華·克萊恩巴德(Edward Kleinbard)說，“有很多研究顯示，稅收補貼的金額，遠遠超過了公司所創造就業崗位的價值。”克萊恩巴德最近出版了《我們可以做得更好：納稅人的錢政府應該怎麼花》(We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money)。

It’s a good thing that the E.U. is trying to curb unjustified tax breaks. Maybe it’s time to do the same here.

歐盟正在設法遏制不合理的稅收優惠，這是好事。或許美國現在也應該這麼做。