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钱从哪来？发展中国家须学会收税

Low-income countries are being called on to generate their own financial resources for development. One of the ways they can do that is through taxes. It’s being discussed at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa (July 13-16).

外界敦促低收入国家开发本国的资金来源用于发展，方式之一是通过收税。从7月13日到16日在亚的斯亚贝巴举行的第三届国际发展融资会议正在讨论这项问题。

Britain’s Institute of Development Studies has issued a policy brief on Building Tax Capacity in Developing Countries. It says that “governments will be urged to tax more effectively” and donors¹ will be called upon to help build the capacity to do so.

英国的发展研究所(IDS)发布了一份政策简报，题为《在发展中国家建设税收能力》。报告说，要敦促发展中国家的政府更有效地征税，并呼吁捐助方帮助这些国家建立税收能力。

Professor Mick Moore, CEO of the International Center for Tax and Development and one of the authors of the brief, said, “I think there’s now a very widespread understanding that a lot of low income countries could probably raise more of their own money themselves. And many of them understand this. You know, we’ve had an era of what I call ‘big aid’ for quite a long time now. And I think it’s clear to most people in the world that that era of ‘big aid’ is going to draw to an end.”

米克·穆尔教授是国际税收与发展中心的首席执行官，也是这份报告的作者之一。他说：“我觉得现在有种普遍的理解，那就是，很多低收入国家可以自行筹集到更多的钱。很多这些国家也理解这点。要知道，我所说的这种‘大援助’时代已经持续相当久了，我觉得多数人明白，这种‘大援助’时代要终结了。”

He said donors would continue providing aid for such things as humanitarian² emergencies. Many low-income countries, he said, would be “happier if they were not dependent on donors and could just raise their own money.”

他说，捐助方将继续提供紧急人道救援等援助，而且，很多低收入国家如果不必依赖援助国，自己就能筹集资金，其实会“更高兴”。

Labeling a country “low-income” may give the impression that it does not have much of a tax base. Moore disagreed.

某个国家如果被列为“低收入”，可能给人造成国家没有足够的课税基础的印象。穆尔说，情况并非如此。

“Well, it’s not really the case. Even low-income countries have a tax base. It’s not as big as the tax base in the U.S. or the U.K., but it’s quite substantial and it’s not always tapped into very well," he said. "So, there is certainly scope for doing better there.”

他说：“实际情况不是那样。即使是低收入国家也有课税基础，虽然不像美国或英国那样大，但也有相当大的潜力，而且常常没有很好地加以利用。所以，那个领域当然有改善空间。”

The IDS professorial fellow said building taxation³ capacity in a low-income country does not necessarily mean taxing poor people.

这位发展研究所的教授研究员说，在低收入国家建设税收能力并不一定意味着向穷人征税。

“There’s a great deal of tax evasion⁴ and the worst tax evasion happens in low-income countries is not actually poor people. But it’s because there are a lot of unrecorded transactions in the economy," he said. "Doctors, lawyers, consultants⁵, dentists, artists, architects – professional people of all kind operate on a cash basis and they don’t pay taxes. Large numbers of people own a lot of property. Property taxes are extremely low in most low-income countries.”

他说：“在低收入国家，有大量逃税现象，最恶劣的逃税者实际上不是穷人。因为经济活动中的很多交易是没有记录的，医生、律师、咨询商、牙医、艺术家和建筑师，等等，各种专业人员都是现金交易，不缴税。大批的人拥有大量财产。而在多数低收入国家，财产税低到了极点。”

Moore said low-income countries already have a tax foundation to build on.

穆尔说，低收入国家已经有收税的基础，可以在此之上加以发展。

“Even the lowest-income countries all have a system of taxation at present. And that system of taxation actually doesn’t look a million miles different from the taxation system in you’ll find in the U.S. So, it’s not as if they’ve got to start from nothing. It’s just that they have a machine there and they’re not using the machine to quite its capacity,” he said.

他说： “即使是最低收入的国家目前都有课税制度，而且那套课税制度跟美国的相比，看上去并不是差了十万八千里。所以，你并不是一切从头开始。他们等于是有机器设备，但没有让它充分运转。”

One reason is a lack of staff well versed⁶ in tax matters. That’s due to qualified⁷ people taking jobs in the private sector⁸. Moore said other reasons include a lack of commitment by the government to do something about taxation – or the government being too eager to give tax breaks to foreign investors⁹.

原因之一是缺乏熟悉税务的工作人员。这是因为合格人才都在私企谋职。穆尔说，其它原因包括政府在改革税收方面缺乏执着精神或者过于迫切地向外国投资者提供税收优惠。

The Institute for Development Studies policy brief said successful tax collection is based on trust.

发展研究所的政策简报说，成功收税的基础是信任。

“We have a long history now of rich countries trying to support the development of organizations in low-income countries. When we’re giving the money we want to do it our way, according to our timetable. And we want our experts to visit there when it’s suitable for us. But in many cases and especially true I think in the tax field where you have quite few rather well educated people, they often know what their problem is. They don’t need us to tell them what the problem is, but they genuinely do need our help in solving it,” said Moore.

穆尔说： “富裕国家试图帮助低收入国家发展组织建设，这样的历史已经很长了。我们给钱的时候，总想让对方按着我们的方式和时间表去做事。我们想在对我们合适的时候派我们的专家去当地。可在很多情况下，特别是在税收领域，这些国家其实有不少的受过良好教育的人，他们经常知道问题在哪里，不需要我们告诉他们问题是什么，但他们真心地需要我们帮助他们解决问题。”

Building partnerships¹⁰, he said, establishes better relationships and brings better results. As the policy brief puts it, “mentoring is better than training.”

穆尔说，建立伙伴模式、发展更好的关系，能够带来更佳的结果。用这份报告的话说，“辅导胜于培训”。

Moore said it’s not clear how much an improved tax capacity would stem illicit¹¹ flows of money. He described it as a “very, very contested issue.”

他说，改进税收能力后，究竟能在多大程度上遏制非法资金流动，目前还不清楚。他说，“这是一个争议非常、非常大的问题”。

“We know that there is quite a lot of illicit flows of money from low-income countries. This goes through banks and much of it is suspicious money. It’s corruption¹² money. And it ends up someplace in the rich world or in a tax haven¹³ world. That’s one thing. But that is not all potential taxable income for the government. Indeed, most of it isn’t potential taxable income for the government. So, even if you enormously cut down on the illicit flows, you wouldn’t necessarily make a big impact on the taxation issue,” he said.

穆尔说：“我们知道有很多非法资金从低收入国家流出。这是通过银行进行的，很多的钱来路可疑，是腐败钱，最后进入了富裕国家的某个地方或者某个避税港。这是一个问题。但这并不是政府全部的潜在征税来源。所以，即使极大减少了非法资金流动，那也不一定对课税问题造成重大影响。”

Several African countries have sharply improved their reputations for tax collections. These include Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania.

有几个非洲国家大力改善了他们在税收方面的声誉。这些国家包括肯尼亚、莫桑比克和坦桑尼亚。

Moore said building tax capacity in low- and middle-income countries is a fashionable subject right now among donors. However, he added that donors often make big commitments, but fail to follow through several years later. One reason is that tax authorities in rich countries are reluctant to release qualified personnel to go work in developing countries because there’s so much work to do at home.

穆尔说，在低收入和中等收入国家建设税收能力如今成了捐助圈的时髦话题。不过他说，捐助方经常做出重大承诺，但几年之后却没有落实。原因之一是富裕国家的税务当局不愿意把合格的税务人员派到发展中国家工作，因为他们本国也有很多事情要做。