評論
打印
Leaders
領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者
The case for taxing death
為向死亡征稅而辯
How to balance people's desire to bequeath assets with the unfairness of inheritance.
如何用繼承的不公平去平衡人們對遺贈資產(chǎn)的欲望。
No tax is popular.
沒有一種稅受人待見。
But one attracts particular venom.
但是，有一種稅招致特別的怨恨。
Inheritance tax is routinely seen as the least fair by Britons and Americans.
在英國人和美國人眼里，繼承稅通常是最缺少公平的。
This hostility spans income brackets.
這種敵意貫穿各個收入階層。
Indeed, surveys suggest that opposition to inheritance and estate taxes (one levied on heirs and the other on legacies) is even stronger among the poor than the rich.
實際上，各種調(diào)查顯示，對繼承稅和遺產(chǎn)稅（前者對繼承人征收，后者對遺產(chǎn)征收）的反對，在窮人中甚至比在富人中更為強烈。
Politicians know a vote-winner when they see one.
政客們知道怎么去贏得選票。
The estate of a dead adult American is 95% less likely to face tax now than in the 1960s.
如今，死去的成年美國人的遺產(chǎn)比上世紀60年代，少了95%的面對稅收的可能性。
And Republicans want to go all the way: the House of Representatives has passed a tax-reform plan that would completely abolish “death taxes” by 2025.
而且共和黨意欲一條道走到黑：眾議院已經(jīng)通過了一項稅改計劃，該計劃會到2025年完全廢除各種“死亡稅”。
For a time before the second world war, Britons were more likely to pay death duties than income tax; today less than 5% of estates catch the taxman's eye.
二戰(zhàn)前有一段時間，在死亡稅和收入稅之間，英國人一度更加有可能繳納前者；如今，不足5%的遺產(chǎn)引起稅務(wù)人員的注意。
It is not just Anglo-Saxons. Revenue from these taxes in OECD countries, as a share of total government revenue, has fallen sharply since the 1960s.
不僅英美，在經(jīng)合組織國家中，來自這些稅的收入作為政府總收入的占比，自上世紀60年代以來也急劇下降了。
Many other countries have gone down the same path.
許多其他國家走過了同樣的道路。
In 2004 even the egalitarian Swedes decided that their inheritance tax should be abolished.
甚至主張平均主義的瑞典也在2004年決定，他們的遺產(chǎn)稅應(yīng)當被廢除。
Yet this trend towards trifling or zero estate taxes ought to give pause.
然而，這種朝向微量或者零遺產(chǎn)稅的趨勢應(yīng)當暫停。
