亞馬遜和Netflix一年賺幾百億卻不用交稅，很魔幻
Tax season is upon us–and by us, I mean everyone who is not Amazon, Netflix, Chevron, or pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly and Co., because they are among the 60 or so corporations that paid zero dollars in federal income taxes on the billions of dollars in profits they earned in 2018.
又到了所有美國人交稅的季節，不過這個“所有人”要去掉亞馬遜、網飛、雪佛龍，以及製藥製造商伊利莉莉等60多家企業，他們在2018年收入幾十億美元卻免交聯邦所得稅。
That’s according to a new analysis, released today by the Washington-based think tank Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and first reported by The Center for Public Integrity. After analyzing the 2018 financial filings of the country’s largest 560 publicly held companies, they found that companies like Amazon and Netflix were “able to zero out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income,” thanks to the tax overhaul bill pushed through Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump.
根據一項最新的研究，最早發佈在美國公共廉政中心，今天由位於華盛頓的智庫稅收與經濟政策研究所(ITEP)發佈，在分析了最大的560上市公司，他們發現像亞馬遜和網飛這樣的公司“美國稅前收入790億美元聯邦所得稅中的支出爲0”，這一切都要感謝由國會通過的這些稅法，以及川普總統將其簽署入法。
“Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21% corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion, blowing a $20.7 billion hole in the federal budget last year,” ITEP reported.
“除了不用付164億的稅金，根據新的21%的企業稅率，這些公司還能夠享受34億美元的企業退稅，這讓聯邦預算去年產生了高達207億的大虧空。
As former Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) once said, “The purpose of a tax cut is to leave more money where it belongs: in the hands of the working men and working women who earned it in the first place.”
前參議員Bob Dole曾經說過：“減稅的目的是讓更多的錢用對地方，讓工作的男女實實在在的拿到手裏。”
While the corporate tax laws probably needed some overhauling (Obama fought to make them more globally competitive), when hardworking Americans have to pay taxes, in some cases more than in previous years, and billion-dollar, profit-making corporations have to pay nothing, it’s hard to see who this new tax bill is benefitting.
不過這項稅法也許需要好好地審查下（奧巴馬努力使他們更具全球競爭力）。當辛苦工作的美國人需要繳稅，而在好幾年前的幾個案例中幾個身價數十億、利潤豐厚的大企業卻一毛不拔，這個新稅法就很難看出到底是誰在收益。
Of course, as Albert Einstein said, “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
當然，就像艾伯特愛因斯坦說的：“這個世界上最難懂的事情莫過於所得稅。”
翻譯：林潯鷗
