印度的全民逃稅運動
As Rama Murthy completes the sale of his apartment in the Indian city of Hyderabad, he accepts from the buyer a bag full of rupees—part of the purchase price the tax man will never see. “Almost 40 percent of the sale price I got in hard cash,” says Murthy, 39, who works at a software company. “It’s illegal, but it’s rampant in India to avoid paying tax.”
在Rama Murthy完成了他在Hyderabad的房產交易後，他從買家那裏得到一袋錢——這部分錢收稅人將永遠見不到。Murthy是一個軟件公司的僱員，他說他的交易中有40%的直接現金支付的，這是非法的，但是這在印度很流行。
India loses 14 trillion rupees ($314 billion) from tax evasion annually, depriving it of funds for investment in roads, ports, and power, says Arun Kumar, author of The Black Economy in India. General government tax revenue is an estimated 18 percent of India’s $1.5 trillion in gross domestic product, the lowest among the four BRIC nations, International Monetary Fund data show. With so little revenue coming in, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is now attempting India’s biggest overhaul of the tax code in half a century.
印度黑色經濟的作者Arun Kumar說印度每年有14萬億摺合美元3140億逃稅額，這些逃稅額都只能從道路，港口和能源等等方面扣除。IMF的數據顯示印度的政府財政收入只有1.5萬億GDP的18%，是金磚四國的最低值。在這麼低的稅率下，印度的首相MAnmohan Singh將在印度進行一次最大的稅率制度改革，這是半世紀以來的第一次。
Investors say tax reform would boost their confidence. “If the government does end up making a substantial amount in revenue as a result of the tax overhaul, their deficit requirements should come down and the interest burden will also come down,” says Killol Pandya, Mumbai-based head of fixed income investments at Daiwa Asset Management (India).
投資人相信稅制改革必然會增進他們的信心。來自孟買的投資機構Daiwa Asset Management的Killol Pandya說如果政府真的可以結束逃稅的盛行並真的從改革中獲得一些收入的話，那麼他的赤字將會降低下來，同時他的銀行利率也會降低下來。
As finance minister in 1991, Singh accelerated tax cuts and reduced the bureaucracy that many businesses found so suffocating. Thanks to his efforts, the top individual income tax rate is now 30 percent, down from 97.5 percent in 1971. With his Direct Taxes Code legislation, Singh hopes to cut the corporate rate to 30 percent from 33 percent.
在Singh1991年擔任財政部長期間，他大力加速了稅制改革，消除了讓很多企業頭疼的官僚主義。正是因爲他的努力，印度個人所得說從1971年最高97.5%降低了到了現在的最高30%。這次他推出的直接納稅制，有希望降低企業的稅率，從33%降低到30%。
The new law, if passed, would also phase out tax holiday periods, which many companies exploit. For years, the north Indian state of Uttarakhand, for example, has had a tax holiday for manufacturers. Companies from elsewhere in India have booked their profits in Uttarakhand-based subsidiaries to lower their tax liability, says Kavita Rao, an economist in New Delhi at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. “When you give these kinds of tax incentives there is always the possibility for misuse,” says Sunil Gupta, a Finance Ministry official who helped write the legislation. Gupta estimates India loses as much as 800 billion rupees a year because of corporate tax incentives.
如果新的法令能夠通過，那麼也可以爭取把現階段許多企業在使用的免稅期變成分階段實施的政策。多年以來，印度北部的省份Uttarakhand一直都有一個免稅假期給生產企業。來自印度國家公共經濟與政策的經濟學家KAcita Rao說很多企業都在Uttarakhand有自己的分部，事實是這裏的分佈是這些企業最賺錢的地方，因爲賦稅更低。幫助立法的一位金融大臣Sunii表示“如果你在那個地方有這種稅率刺激，總是會導致濫用”。Sunnii估計印度每年會因爲這種稅率優惠損失8000億盧比。
These reforms will need extra enforcement. “People have to believe that if they don’t pay taxes they will get caught,” says Rao, who will lead one of three studies commissioned by the government of the black market economy. There’s already a proposal to boost the number of tax collectors, and a group has been set up to track untaxed transactions in the underground economy.
當然，這些改革也需要有額外的保護措施。即將領導印度政府的針對黑市經濟的三個調查委員會之一的Rao說“人們必須要相信如果他繼續逃稅必然會被抓到”，這個委員會成立的目的就是爲了追蹤那些逃稅的祕密交易。
One challenge is the paralysis that’s afflicted Parliament since this year’s scandal over irregularities in the sale of valuable mobile-phone licenses. “The government must start the reform process once again,” says Adi Godrej, chairman of Godrej Consumer Products, a maker of household and consumer products. Another reason for lawmakers’ reluctance is that part of India’s unreported cash bankrolls election campaigns, says N. Bhaskara Rao, chairman of the Center for Media Studies in New Delhi. “Political parties will only be curtailing their spending power by backing proposals to curb black money,” he says.
但是到現在爲止還有一個挑戰需要克服，政府已經由於今年的關於違法出售電信行業營運牌照的醜聞而喪失殆盡了公信力。來自負責房屋和快消品生產商Godrej的主席Adi Godrej表示：改革必須重新開始了。來自新德里中央媒體研究所的N. Bhaskara Rao說另外一個讓政府遲遲不肯行動的原因就是印度政府在選戰中也有一些說不清來源的現金流。他說：這些政客不可能冒着削減自己開銷的危險來支持這個必然會導致他們的黑錢無法使用的提案。
