科技巨头的好日子到头了？经合组织暗示多国一致同意征数字税

在国家诞生以前，凭借公路上的收费站和环绕城市的围墙，税务部门可以从商家的利润中分得一杯羹。问题是，在全新数字时代收费加围城的组合拳并不太管用，科技巨头和跨国企业在实质上绕过了有形的屏障，把本该缴纳的税款留在了自己的口袋里。

不过，形势可能要变了。经济合作与发展组织（OECD，简称“经合组织”）最近表示，95个司法辖区的代表一致同意，“应对经济数字化带来的税收挑战。”换言之，全球一些最富有的国家希望过时的组合拳更新换代，赶上21世纪的步伐，终结持续多年的逃税现象。

今年1月在瑞士达沃斯举办的世界经济论坛期间，经合组织的秘书长安赫尔·古里亚向法新社表示，尽管去年美国政府和欧盟出现了分歧，“相信仍然存在一些条件，可以为今年达成协议奠定基础，可能2020年就会批准并生效。”

经合组织领衔的政策改革主要是数字税相关的倡议，早在2015年就已经启动，目标是2020年正式执行。经合组织总部位于巴黎，之所以采取行动主要是希望将数字税问题提上日程的英国和法国等国家大力推动，相关国家均已经制定法律并执行，通过不同的方式向全球数字服务收入征税。

问题在于，如果各国都有自己的法律，有的企业可能面临双重征税，有的则能巧妙逃税。因此，经合组织希望近期公布的政策“基础”可以避免相关问题。

各种问题绝非孤立存在。美国官员的目标是，对包括数字服务商在内的跨国企业制定全球最低税率，企业的投资地拥有优先征税权。

欧盟也在考虑更侧重数字服务的用户所在地，但由于欧盟成员情况差别很大，实施起来存在困难。欧盟成员国里卢森堡和爱尔兰之类是避税天堂。在另一些成员国很少设有企业总部，却有很多数字服务的用户。

总体而言，尽管争论看来永无休止，终有一天全球数字税框架会问世。一些跨国企业会表示反对，谷歌之类已经表示有兴趣达成全球协作，如此以来税务规划将更有预见性，也更加类似。

译者：Pessy

审校：夏林

Pikes across roads and walls around cities have enabled tax authorities to take a slice of business profits since before the dawn of the nation-state. Trouble is this pike-and-wall approach hasn’t served too well in the new, digital age as tech giants and global multinationals have essentially walked around the barriers and taken their money home.

This, however, may be about to change. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said recently that representatives from 95 jurisdictions had agreed to “address the tax challenges of the digitalization of the economy.” In other words: the richest countries in the world want to drag the pike-and-wall approach into the 21st century and end years of avoidance.

OECD head Ángel Gurria told AFP at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January that despite differences between the U.S. and EU last year, “I believe that the conditions exist to lay the foundations for an agreement this year that could be approved and enter into force in 2020.”

The OECD-led policy reforms are part of an initiative dating to 2015 and are targeted to go into action in 2020. The Paris-based institute has been forced into action by individual countries such as the U.K., France, who have brought the issue to a head by writing and implementing their own laws that tax global digital service revenues in different ways.

The problem is that if each country implements different laws, companies may be subject to double-taxation in some cases and no taxation in others. That’s what the OECD seeks to prevent in one of the policy “pillars” announced recently.

But they are no means alone: U.S. officials are aiming to set a minimum global tax rate on multinationals, including digital service providers, that would give taxing priority to places where companies invest.

The EU is also ruminating over proposals that focus more on the location of the users of the services — although this has been hindered by the fact that the EU itself is divided between tax havens such as Luxembourg and Ireland, and countries with few company headquarters but lots of service users.

The overall upshot, however, is that despite the seemingly endless debates a framework for a global digital tax will, one day, exist. While some multinationals will rail against the changes, others such as Google, have already expressed an interest in a coordinated global approach that would make their tax planning more predictable and homogenous.