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It was only a matter of time before Donald Trump’s war on what we used to know as the global economy spilled over from trade to other areas. Sure enough, while his trade war is set for a new phase next week — when the US president’s “liberation day” tariff schedule is supposed to come into effect — we have just witnessed the first skirmish on the second front, over taxes.
美国总统唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)对我们过去所熟知的全球经济的战争迟早会从贸易蔓延到其他领域。果然，下周他的贸易战将进入一个新阶段——届时他的“解放日”关税计划将生效——我们刚刚目睹了第二条战线上的第一场小冲突，那就是税收。
In 2021, countries led by the G7 and the OECD reached a compromise on how to reform tax rules for international companies. A failure to update an old web of bilateral tax treaties aiming to avoid double taxation had led, too often, to a situation of double non-taxation, with loopholes too easily allowing corporations to pretend their profits were made in low- or zero-tax jurisdictions. The “base erosion and profit shifting” efforts eventually arrived — in no small part thanks to Trump’s first Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin — at new rules by which countries may tax companies active in their jurisdictions if those companies are inadequately taxed elsewhere.
2021年，以七国集团(G7)和经合组织(OECD)为首的国家就如何改革国际公司的税收规则达成了妥协。未能更新旨在避免双重征税的旧双边税收协定网络，往往导致双重不征税的情况，漏洞太容易让公司假装他们的利润是在低税或零税管辖区获得的。“税基侵蚀和利润转移”的努力最终达成了新的规则，这在很大程度上要归功于特朗普的第一任财政部长史蒂文•姆努钦(Steven Mnuchin)，根据这些规则，如果在其管辖范围内开展业务的公司在其他地方被征税不足，各国可以对这些公司征税。
But giving other countries taxing rights to US corporates’ profits was never going to go down well with the president. Insistence on tax sovereignty for America and opposition to extraterritoriality by others are a bipartisan matter in Washington. Given Trump’s pugilism, a conflict was bound to come to a head. The question is how other countries choose to respond.
但让其他国家对美国公司的利润拥有征税权，特朗普绝不会同意。在华盛顿，坚持美国税收主权和反对他国治外法权是两党共识。鉴于特朗普的咄咄逼人，冲突必然会一触即发。问题在于其他国家选择如何应对。
On Saturday, other G7 countries accepted a US demand for its companies to be exempted from two rules it sees as particularly unjustifiable. In return, Washington has arranged the removal of section 899 from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This section — which may have been inserted precisely to create leverage to force this outcome — would have imposed new US taxes on corporations from countries deemed to discriminate against American companies. The OECD has welcomed the agreement.
上周六，其他七国集团国家接受了美国的要求，即美国公司可以不受其认为特别不合理的两项规定的约束。作为回报，华盛顿安排删除《大而美法案》(One Big Beautiful Bill Act)中的第899条。该条款——可能正是为了制造筹码以迫使达成这一结果而写入的——将对来自被认为歧视美国公司的国家的公司征收新的美国税。经合组织对该协议表示欢迎。
Giving in to the US may not have been the wisest choice. After all, it has demonstrated that blackmail can work. At the same time, it is never clear with the Trump administration what commitments it will stand by. In this case, the US Treasury has reassured counterparts that it is committed to addressing any “substantial” profit-shifting risks within its domestic system, “side by side” with the international scheme others have signed up to in full. But it is unclear how this commitment will be followed up and enforced.
向美国屈服未必是最明智的选择。毕竟，它已经证明了讹诈是有用的。同时，对于特朗普政府来说，它永远不清楚自己会坚持哪些承诺。在这种情况下，美国财政部向同行保证，它将致力于解决其国内体系内任何“实质性的”利润转移风险，与其他国家已全面签署的国际计划“并肩作战”。但目前还不清楚将如何跟进和执行这一承诺。
The other G7 nations may, however, have reasoned that among many battles, this was not one to pick. That was certainly true of Canada, which surrendered quickly in another tax fight. It swiftly withdrew a digital services tax after Trump called off trade negotiations and threated higher tariffs on Canadian goods. DSTs will become flashpoints with European countries, too: the UK, France, Spain and Italy all have a version of it. The UK’s DST survived the first trade announcements with the US, but may still be in Washington’s crosshairs. The EU countries, shielded by the size of their big trade bloc, should find it easier to resist. As they seek a resolution to trade negotiations with Trump, they ought to resist any pressure to compromise on tax sovereignty for a quick deal.
然而，七国集团的其他国家可能会认为，在众多战役中，这不是一场值得挑选的战役。加拿大当然也是如此，它在另一场税收斗争中迅速投降。在特朗普叫停贸易谈判并提出对加拿大商品征收更高的关税后，加拿大迅速撤回了数字服务税。数字服务税也将成为欧洲国家的热点：英国、法国、西班牙和意大利都有数字服务税。英国的数字服务税在与美国的首次贸易声明中幸免于难，但仍可能成为华盛顿的靶子。欧盟国家因其庞大的贸易集团而受到保护，应该更容易抵制。在寻求解决与特朗普的贸易谈判问题时，他们应该抵制任何在税收主权问题上妥协以达成快速协议的压力。
What is clear is that business does not benefit from these kinds of tussles. Instead of a hard-won compromise, some multinational corporations will now have to face a more complex dual system that ostensibly will levy just as much tax. The very fact that tax rules have turned into legitimate targets for economic coercion adds a layer of policy uncertainty. Whether it was Trump’s intention or not, the cost of doing business across borders has just gone up yet another notch.
很明显，企业并没有从这些争斗中受益。一些跨国公司如今不得不面对一个更为复杂的双重体系，而不是一个来之不易的妥协方案——这个体系表面上征收的税收与之前相当。税收规则已成为经济胁迫的合法目标，这一事实又增加了一层政策不确定性。无论这是否是特朗普的意图，跨境经营的成本刚刚又上升了一个台积。