美国的增值税：一种解决方案【外文翻译】.doc

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1、本科毕业论文（设计）外 文 翻 译外文出处 Brookings Institution and Tax Policy Center 外文作者 William G. Gale，Benjamin H. Harris 原文：A Value-Added Tax for the United States: Part of the SolutionAdministrative Issues A broad-based VAT would cost less to administer than the current income tax. For example, in the United King

2、dom, administrative costs of the VAT were less than half of those of the income tax, measured as a share of revenue. Similarly, the New Zealand revenue department was required to intervene in just 3 percent of VAT returns, compared to 25 percent of income tax returns (GAO 2008). The VAT has complian

3、ce advantages over a retail sales tax, which aims to collect all revenue at the point of sale from a business to a household. Since revenue collection for the VAT is spread across stages of production, with producers receiving a credit against taxes paid as an incentive for compliance, the VAT in pr

4、actice is less likely to be evaded.Theory and evidence suggest that the compliance burden would likely fall more heavily as a percentage of sales on smaller businesses. Most countries address these concerns by exempting small businesses from collecting the VAT. In 2007, 24 out of the 29 OECD countri

5、es with a VAT exempted businesses with gross receipts beneath specified thresholds, varying from $2,159 to $93,558 (OECD 2008). Finally, it is worth noting that, to the extent that administrative costs are fixed with respect to the VAT standard rate, the presence of such costs suggest that the VAT s

6、hould be set at a relatively higher rate rather than a lower one.The States Some analysts express concern that a national VAT would impinge on states ability to administer their own sales taxes. In our view, a national VAT could help states significantly. State retail sales taxes are poorly designed

7、 they exempt many goods and most services and collect more than 40 percent of their revenue from taxing business purchases, which should be exempt.Converting their sales taxes to VATs and piggybacking on a broad-based federal VAT would offer states several advantages. First, the states could raise s

8、ubstantial amounts of revenue in a less distortionary manner than current sales taxes. Second, administrative costs, which currently exceed 3 percent of state sales tax revenue (PriceWaterhouseCoopers 2006), would decline. Many states currently link their income tax to the federal income tax base, w

9、ith obvious administrative and compliance advantages. Similar savings would accrue from linking federal and state VAT bases. Third, a national VAT would allow states and the federal government to tax previously difficult-to-tax transactions, such as interstate mail order and internet sales. If the U

10、.S. experience followed that of Canada, the federal government could collect revenue on behalf of states and absolve states of the cost of administering consumption taxes altogether (Duncan and Sedon 2010). In 2009, state and local sales tax revenue equaled 2.0 percent of GDP (authors calculations b

11、ased on U.S. Census Bureau 2010). If the federal VAT had the broad base and demogrants described in Table 1, and the states and localities piggy-backed on that structure, an average subnational VAT of about 6 percent would raise the same revenue as existing state and local sales taxes.Alternatively,

12、 states could maintain their sales taxes or create their own VAT bases. Following the implementation of a federal VAT in Canada, most provinces maintained their existing tax codes for several years. Some provinces have yet to fully harmonize with the federal VAT, while Quebec administers its own VAT

13、 (Duncan and Sedon 2010).Anticipated VAT as Stimulus While a major tax increase would not be a good idea while the economy is still recovering slowly from recession, it is worth noting that there is potential for the announcement of a future VAT to be stimulative in the current period. By raising th

14、e price of consumption goods in the future, or by doing so gradually over time via a phased-in VAT, the announcement would encourage people to spend more now and in the near future, when the economy needs the stimulus. This effect may not be very big there is little evidence but it goes in the right

15、 direction. Will the VAT fuel expanding government? The VAT has been called a money machine in honor of its ability to raise substantial amounts of revenue. That is a helpful feature if the revenues are used to close deficits, but poses a problem if the boost in revenue simply fuels further unsustai

16、nable growth in federal spending.Some analysts reject any source of extra revenue including a VAT on the grounds that less government revenue leads to smaller government. In general, this “starve the beast” theory does not apply to most taxes, nor does it reflect recent experience. Romer and Romer (

17、2009), for example, find that tax cuts designed to spur long-run growth do not in fact lead to lower government spending; if anything, they find that tax cuts lead to higher spending. This finding is consistent with Gale and Orszag (2004b), who argue that the experience of the last 30 years is more

18、consistent with a coordinated fiscal discipline view, in which tax cuts were coupled with increased spending (as in the 1980s and 2000s) and tax increases were coupled with contemporaneous spending reductions (as in the 1990s). Given the widely recognized need for both spending cuts and revenue incr

19、eases to balance the budget, it is likely that any new revenue stream would be accompanied by reductions in spending. Some observers argue that the VAT is such an efficient and invisible tax that it has been and would be used to fuel government spending increases through a gradually increasing VAT r

20、ate. Bartlett (2010a, 2010b) addresses this claim by noting that increased VAT rates in OECD countries were common among early adopters, who operated a VAT in the high-inflation environments in the 1970s, but far less common among countries that adopted a VAT after 1975. Among the 17 countries that

21、instituted a VAT during the post-1975 period of relative price stability, four have not changed their VAT rate and four have decreased the rate; the average rate increase across all late-adopters of the VAT is less than 1 percentage point. The average VAT in OECD countries has been roughly constant

22、since 1984 at or just below 18 percent. Making the VAT transparent A variant of the concern about spending growth is the notion that the VAT is hidden in overall prices. As a result, the argument goes, taxpayers wont notice the VAT the way they do income, sales, or payroll taxes, enabling Congress t

23、o increase the VAT rate without much taxpayer resistance. This issue is easily addressed. The VAT doesnt have to be invisible: for example, Canada simply requires that businesses print the amount of VAT paid on a receipt with every consumer purchase. This is essentially identical to the standard U.S

24、. practice of printing sales taxes paid on each receipt.Another way to make the VAT transparent is to link VAT rates and revenues with spending on particular goods. Aaron (1991) and Burman (2009) propose a VAT related to health spending. Under such a system, the additional health insurance coverage

25、would help offset the regressivity of a VAT and make the costs of both the VAT and government spending more transparent. Inflation The creation of an add-on VAT will create pressure on prices. (If, instead, the VAT were replacing a sales tax, there would be no pressure or need to adjust the price le

26、vel.) In our view, the Fed should accommodate the one-time price rise inherent in the creation of an add-on VAT. Not doing so would create significant and unnecessary adjustment costs in terms of lost jobs and wages. But there is no theoretical or empirical reason to expect that the VAT would cause

27、continuing inflation. Indeed, the presence of an additional revenue source would reduce the likelihood of the Fed having to monetize the debt. Research has found only a weak relationship between the VAT and continually increasing prices. In a survey of 35 countries that introduced the VAT, Tait (199

28、1) finds that 63 percent exhibited no increase in the consumer price index (perhaps because they were replacing existing sales taxes) and 20 percent had a one-time price rise. In the remaining 17 percent of cases, the introduction of the VAT coincided with ongoing acceleration in consumer prices, bu

29、t it is not likely in Taits view that the VAT caused the acceleration. The Canadian VATIn 1991, Canada implemented a 7 percent VAT at the national level to replace a tax on sales by manufacturers. Many of the concerns associated with the VAT in the United States can be assuaged by observing the Cana

30、dian experience.Canada addressed distributional concerns by applying a zero rate to certain necessities and adding a refundable tax credit in the income tax. As noted above, we prefer the latter method. The Canadian VAT is completely transparent: it is listed separately on receipts just like sales t

31、axes in the U.S. Perhaps because of the transparency, the VAT has not led to significant growth of government spending. Federal spending in Canada has in fact gradually declined from 22.6 percent of GDP in 1991when the VAT was implementedto 14.9 percent in 2009. The standard VAT rate has declined ov

32、er time to 6 percent in 2006 and 5 percent in 2008. Federal tax revenue in Canada has fallen from 17.6 percent of GDP in 1991 to 16.3 percent of GDP in 2007 (and fell further to 14.6 percent during the 2009 recession). In terms of both revenues and expenditures, the size of the Canadian federal gove

33、rnment has shrunk significantly since the introduction of the VAT. Since 1991, Canadian inflation and economic growth rates have been similar to those in the United States. Coordinating provincial sales taxes with the VAT has proven to be challenging, but manageable. After the VAT was introduced, pr

34、ovinces over time began to coordinate their sales taxes with the federal VAT. By July 2010, five of the 10 provinces will have “harmonized” VATs, making their provincial tax bases essentially identical to the federal base. In these cases, the federal government administers the provincial tax on beha

35、lf of the province, and the provincial governments set their own VAT rate. Quebec administers its own VAT; three provinces will administer their own retail sales taxes. One province and the three territories have no consumption tax. The U.S. could accommodate a variety of state choices regarding con

36、sumption taxes in similar fashion. An American VAT The structure of an American VAT should include: o a very broad base; o rebates or income tax credits (rather than product exemptions) to achieve progressivity; o efforts to raise transparency (for example, having VAT listed separately on receipts);

37、 and o explicit links to spending discipline. While we are not wedded to a particular rate, we do note that a 10 percent VAT with a broad base could raise about 2 percent of GDP in revenues, even after netting out the offsetting adjustments in other taxes and the costs of compensating households for

38、 VAT payments on a reasonable level of consumption. Other than the resources used to provide the rebate, VAT revenues should be used largely, if not completely, for deficit reduction. While tax and spending reform require continued attention from policymakers, closing the fiscal gap is a top priorit

39、y. To the extent that VAT revenues are used for other purposes, there will be fewer options left for balancing the federal budget. We believe the states would benefit from dropping their sales taxes and rapidly harmonizing with a federal VAT, but that is an issue they can decide for themselves. If a

40、ll states did harmonize and if the federal VAT rate were 10 percent, the resulting combined VAT rateincluding the state and federal ratewould be on the order of 15 to 17 percent. This would still be below the OECD average, but would be sufficient to significantly close the long-term gap and replace

41、and improve upon state-level sales taxes. It would also send a strong signal to consumer that public policymakers are aiming to reduce consumption and raise saving. Given current economic challenges, the timing of a VAT is important. Instituting a significant tax on consumption during a recession wo

42、uld be counterproductive. The optimal time to implement a VAT is after the economy has returned to full employment. The VAT is not the only tax or spending policy that can constructively help solve the fiscal problem, nor will it solve the problem by itself. Nevertheless, to oppose the VAT is to arg

43、ue either (a) there is no fiscal gap, (b) ignoring the fiscal gap is better than imposing a VAT, or (c) there are better ways than the VAT to make policy sustainable. No one disputes the existence of a fiscal gap, though, and the economic costs of fiscal unsustainability are enormous. As to the noti

44、on that there are better ways to put fiscal policy on a sustainable path, we would be excited to learn about them. In the meantime, policy makers should not let the hypotheticaland to date undiscoveredideal policy get in the way of the time-tested, more-than-adequate VAT.Source: William G. Gale and

45、Benjamin H. Harris. A Value-Added Tax for the United States: Part of the SolutionR. Brookings Institution and Tax Policy Center, 2010.12译文：美国的增值税： 一种解决方案行政问题一个税基广泛的增值税将比当前所得税花费更少的管理成本。例如，在英国，增值税的管理费用少于所得税一半的管理费用。同样，新西兰税务部门宣布，增值税的申报费用为3%，而所得税的申报费用为25%（总审计局，2008）。增值税是在销售商品时征收的一种流转税。由于增值税的税收征管是分散在生产阶段，

46、对于生产者来说，增值税的征收是不可避免的。有理论和证据表明，对于较小的企业征收增值税，其合规负担可能会更加严重。大多数国家决定免征小企业增值税。2007年，29个经济合作与发展组织中的24个国家，决定对于收入总额在限额以内的小企业免收增值税，限额从2,159美元到93,558美元不等（经济合作与发展组织，2008）。最后，值得注意的是，相对增值税税率来说，管理费用在某种程度上是固定的，就目前而言，应该设置一个相对较高的增值税税率。美国一些分析家担心，实行增值税可能会影响到目前所实行的销售税的管理。我们认为，增值税能够有效的帮助一个国家。一国的销售税设计不当，就可能会免除许多商品、服务和超过40

47、%的企业采购时产生的销售税。将他们的销售税转换成以增值税和基础广泛的联邦增值税，会给国家带来几大好处。第一，美国可以用一个比目前的销售税更不扭曲的方式提高税收收入。第二，目前超过3%销售税收入的行政费用将下降（普华永道，2006）。许多州将他们的所得税与联邦所得税相连接，具有明显的行政和服从优势。联邦增值税和州增值税相连接会增加储蓄。第三，统一的增值税可以允许以前各州和联邦政府难以征税的州际税收交易，例如跨境邮购订单和互联网销售。如果美国吸取了加拿大的经验，那么联邦政府可能会向各州征收增值税，但免除一些消费税的费用（邓肯、西登，2010）。2009年，州和地方销售税的收入相当于GDP的2.0%

48、（作者的计算以美国2010年人口普查局为基础）。如果联邦增值税有广泛的基础，如在表1所描述，对于这种结构的州和地区，在当地销售收入相同的情况下，采用增值税会比现行销售税增加6个百分点的税收。另外，各个州可以创建他们自己的销售税或增值税。在加拿大联邦增值税的实施后，多数省份在未来几年时间里保持现有的税收法规。一些省份还没有完全统一的联邦增值税，如魁北克可以管理自己的增值税（邓肯、西登， 2010）。预计增值税作为一种刺激当经济正在缓慢的从衰退中复苏时，大幅度的增加税收将不会是一个好主意，但值得注意的是，宣布在未来采用增值税可能会对当期的经济产生刺激。通过提高未来消费品的价格，或通过分阶段逐步执行

49、增值税，在经济需要刺激时，将鼓励人们更多的消费。这种影响可能不会很大，但它在正确的方向走去。增值税能否给政府发展增加动力？增值税被称为“赚钱机器”，可以大量的增加税收。如果税收被用于调节赤字，那么这是一个有用的功能，但有一个问题，如果在税收的增加可能会引起更多联邦开支不可持续的增长。一些分析家拒绝任何额外的收入来源 包括增值税其理由是较少政府收入会导致小政府。一般来说，这种理论并不适用于大多数税收，也没有反映相应的经验。罗默和罗默（2009），例如，发现减税的目的是促进长期增长，这么做实际上不会导致政府开支的降低；减税反而会导致更高的支出。这一发现与伽勒和奥斯泽格（2004 b）的一个“协调的财政纪律”观点是一致的，这个观点是说，政府开支会随着税收的减少而增加（如20世纪80年代和21世纪），政府开支也会随着税收的增加而减少（如在20世纪90年代）。鉴于此观点，人们普遍认识到需要为开支和收入进行平衡