反避税行动 美国为何执行双重标准

PARIS — Journalists have done their job, again, with another enormous leak of documents outing a global list of rich and powerful people who hid their wealth in offshore companies.

巴黎——借着又一批海量文件的外泄，记者们再度克尽职责，揭露了世界各地利用离岸公司隐藏财产的富豪与政要的名单。

This time, prompted by the Panama Papers, several European governments have followed up with new measures intended to rip away the veil of secrecy that is costing them billions of dollars in tax revenues.

这一回，在“巴拿马文件”的推动下，数个欧洲国家的政府跟进新措施，试图揭开使它们损失无数税收的隐秘机制的面纱。

“Populist outrage doesn’t by itself collect a single extra pound or dollar in tax or put a single criminal in jail,” said George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer in Britain, at a news conference on Thursday in Washington.

“光是群情激愤，连一个子儿的税收也讨不回来，也不会有哪怕一个犯人因此被关进监狱，”周二时，英国财政大臣乔治·奥斯本(George Osborne)在华盛顿的一场记者会上如此表示。

To that end, the biggest economies in the European Union — Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain — announced a plan to automatically share information about the true, or “beneficial,” owners of shell companies and overseas trusts.

为了达成目标，英国、法国、德国、意大利和西班牙这欧盟五大经济体，针对空壳公司与海外资产信托的真正持有人——即“实益”所有人——宣布了一项资讯自动分享计划。

This is good news for the global campaign to expose the ill-gotten gains of the corrupt and the secretly held wealth of tax evaders who benefit from a system that rewards anonymity.

一些逃税者受益于一种奖励匿名的金融体系，透过贪腐与藏匿财富赚取不当利益。对于致力于让这些不义之财曝光的全球倡议活动来说，该计划是个好消息。

But there is one major player that is coming up short, and that is the United States, which in 2015 ranked third, behind Switzerland and Hong Kong, in a financial secrecy index published by the Tax Justice Network, a nonprofit organization based in Washington.

不过，在这整局棋中有个关键的角色表现得不尽如人意，那就是美国。2015年，美国在非营利组织税收正义网(Tax Justice Network)公布的金融保密指数中排名第三，仅次于瑞士和香港。

The Obama administration has recently taken steps to require banks to check the identities of clients setting up companies and to track the ownership of expensive real estate.

奥巴马政府近来已展开行动，要求银行验证欲建立公司的客户身份、追查高价房地产的所有人。

Resistance to greater corporate transparency is still strong at the state level, however, where companies and corporations are registered.

然而，加强金融透明度一事，仍遭到负责注册公司企业的州政府的强烈抗拒。

Attention has focused on Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada, which aggressively market tax advantages for offshore companies. But in fact, full disclosure of ownership is not required in any of the 50 states.

其中的主要焦点在特拉华、怀俄明与内华达。这三州都十分积极地推销离岸公司在当地享有的税赋优惠。不过事实上，在美国的50个州里，没有任何一州要求财产所有人充分公开身份。

This has created an enormous black hole not only for tax inspectors but also for law enforcement officials who “can’t follow the money,” said Tom Cardamone, managing director of Global Financial Integrity, a research and advocacy group based in Washington. “What we have in place is compete secrecy, and it is secrecy that is the problem,” he said.

华盛顿研究暨倡议团体全球金融诚信组织(Global Financial Integrity)的执行主任汤姆‧卡达蒙(Tom Cardamone)表示，这不只给税务稽查员带来极大阻碍 ，也让执法官员无法“追踪现金流”。“我们现有的制度是完全保密的，而这种保密性就是问题所在，”卡达蒙说。

A bipartisan bill to make the states require disclosure of ownership is now before Congress, but it has stalled.

一份让各州要求揭露财产所有人身份的提案已经送入美国国会。该法案由来自两党的人员共同提交，目前却遭到搁置。

Opposition comes from the American Bar Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a less-known but powerful lobby, the National Association of Secretaries of State. That final group fears a loss of revenue for state budgets if more transparency is required, said Robert Palmer, campaign director at Global Witness, an anticorruption organization.

提案的反对压力来自美国律师协会(American Bar Association)、美国商会(U.S. Chamber of Commerce)，以及一个较不知名但颇具影响力的游说团体：全美州务卿协会(National Association of Secretaries of State)。反贪腐组织全球见证(Global Witness)的倡议主任罗伯特·帕尔默(Robert Palmer)表示，州务卿协会担忧的是，州级预算收入可能会因为对财务透明度的要求提高而流失。

“Passing legislation in the U.S. is challenging,” he said.

“要在美国通过法案是很大的挑战，”帕尔默说。

Failure to respond to the worldwide clamor for financial accountability looks hypocritical from afar, considering the United States’ aggressive extraterritorial pursuit of foreign companies that violate its Foreign Corrupt Practices law and its demands that foreign banks provide information about accounts held by American citizens.

从外人的眼光看来，考虑到美国是如何积极行使治外法权以声讨违反该国《反海外腐败法》(Foreign Corrupt Practices Act)的外国公司，又是如何要求国外银行提供美国公民的帐户资料的，这个国家未能回应全球对金融问责性的大声疾呼就显得颇为虚伪了。

“Though the U.S. has been a pioneer in defending itself from foreign secrecy jurisdictions it provides little information in return to other countries, making it a formidable, harmful and irresponsible secrecy jurisdiction,” according to a Tax Justice Network report.

税收正义网在报告中指出：“虽然美国在海外带头保护自身利益不被金融不透明的制度所侵害，但其他国家却几乎不能获得它提供的资讯作为回报。这使得国在秘密资产方面成为一个难以应付、害人不浅又不负责任的管辖地。”

Though legislation in the United States has faltered, other countries began moving ahead with the creation of registries of corporate beneficial owners even before the Panama Papers came to light. Such a registry will be available to the public in Britain on June 30, while national registries required by the European Union will be ready by 2017, although access to their information will be more restricted.

虽然美国的立法进程遭受了挫折，但其他一些国家已经开始取得进展，甚至在巴拿马文件曝光前便已着手建立企业实益拥有人登记制度。从6月30日开始，英国将把此类登记信息向公众开放，欧盟要求的全国性登记将于2017年准备就绪，不过对登记信息的查询会受到较为严格的限制。

Pressure is now growing on Britain to force its overseas territories — like the British Virgin Islands, which is home, on paper, to more than half of the companies revealed by the Panama leak — to follow suit, a subject sure to dominate an anticorruption summit meeting in London next month.

目前，英国面临着与日俱增的压力，希望它去强制自己的海外属地——比如英属维尔京群岛，被巴拿马文件曝光的公司，有一半以上在名义上设在该地——采取类似举措，而这必然成为将于下月在伦敦举行的一场反腐峰会的主要议题。

Transparency advocates hope similar pressure will build in the United States to shine a light on what Mr. Osborne called “those hiding spaces, those dark corners of the global financial system” right in its own backyard.

支持提高透明度的人士希望类似的压力也能在美国积聚起来，迫使它点一盏灯，照亮奥斯本所说的“全球金融体系之中那些存在于美国自家后院的隐秘空间，那些黑暗的角落。”

As Mr. Palmer says, “I don’t think we should have to rely on journalists.”

正如帕尔默所言，“我认为我们不应该只能依赖新闻记者。”