特朗普减税承诺背后:美国经济的隐忧与挑战| 经济学人财经

财富   2024-10-24 09:04   云南  

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导图作者:
May Li,我要去追逐心中的太阳,还要继续努力的亚古兽

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Finance & economics | Everyone wins

财经专栏|众赢
英文部分选自经济学人20241019期财经板块

Finance & economics | Everyone wins

财经专栏|众赢

Trump’s trillion-dollar tax cuts are spiralling out of control

特朗普数万亿美元的减税措施正在逐渐失控

His zany promises would blow up the deficit

他的滑稽承诺将使赤字激增

For americanpolicy wonks, the final stretch of the presidential election has given rise to a new parlour game. What is the next tax that Donald Trump will promise to cut? The Republican candidate has trotted out a range of pledges, from no taxes on overtime work to no taxes on retirement benefits. Last week alone he proposed three new exemptions, including making interest on car loans tax-deductible. It is easy to figure out what Mr Trump hopes to gain. Yet the economic implications are dispiriting: not just a bigger fiscal deficit but a much messier tax code.

对于美国政策专家来说,总统选举的最后阶段引发了新一轮猜想,即唐纳德·特朗普下一步要拿哪个税种开刀?从加班工资免税到退休金免税,这位共和党候选人做出了一系列承诺。仅在上周,他就提出了三项新的免税措施,包括将汽车贷款利息作为税收抵扣项。不难看出特朗普的目的所在。然而,这对经济的影响令人沮丧:不仅财政赤字更大,而且税法更加混乱。

注:

1.wonka person who is obsessively interested in a specified subject 书呆子

2.parlour game: A parlour game is a form of entertainment that is typically played in a living room or parlor, often involving a group of people and requiring little to no equipment. Parlour games can include a variety of activities such as charades, Pictionary, or board games, which are designed to be engaging and entertaining for social gatherings.客厅游戏(或室内游戏),指在客厅或家庭聚会上玩的游戏,通常涉及社交和智力活动。在这里,指的是一种政治观察者或分析人士在总统选举最后阶段玩的心理游戏或讨论游戏。

3.trott outto bring forward, as for approbation or admiration, esp repeatedly 引述; 尤指重复地

Set against the federal government’s $4trn in annual tax revenue, some of Mr Trump’s most attention-grabbing ideas are inexpensive. For instance, exempting tips from taxes would cost about $118bn over the next decade, according to the Tax Foundation, a think-tank. Others would be much bigger. He has proposed reinstating a rule to let Americans fully deduct taxes paid to state and local governments from their federal tax bills. That could cost $1trn over the next decade, the Tax Foundation says. And these all come on top of Mr Trump’s baseline pledge to extend the income-tax cuts that he made in 2017, which are due to expire at the end of next year.

考虑到联邦政府每年4万亿美元的税收,特朗普最引人注目的一些想法并不昂贵。例如,根据智库税务基金会(Tax Foundation)的数据,免征小费税将在未来10年减少税收约1180亿美元。其他想法的花销则要大得多。特朗普提议恢复在联邦税单中全额扣除各州和地方政府税款的政策。税务基金会表示,这可能在下一个十年使税收减少1万亿美元。除此之外,也不要忘了特朗普的基本承诺:延长自己2017年颁布的所得税减免计划(原定于明年年底到期)。
One obvious concern is that these various cuts would push up an already bloated federal deficit. In an estimate published on October 7th, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan group, projected that the deficit would climb to as much as 12% ofgdp by 2035 under Mr Trump, up from about 7% last year. As a result, the national debt would soar to vertiginous heights (see chart).

一个显而易见的担忧是,这些税收削减将继续推高已然膨胀的联邦赤字。跨党派研究机构负责任的联邦预算委员会Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget107日发布的预测显示,在特朗普的领导下,赤字占GDP的比重将从去年的约7%攀升至2035年的12%,因此,政府债务将急剧上升至令人眩晕的高度(见图表)。

Taken together, the proposals also represent a shift from Mr Trump’s approach to taxes during his first term. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017—his biggest legislative accomplishment—simplified the tax system and broadened the base of taxpayers in order to clear the way for cuts. What he is proposing now, however, is the creation of a dizzying array of loopholes. Philosophically, it is hard to defend many: why, for instance, should wage workers pay taxes on their entire income, whereas workers who receive tips avoid taxes on some of their income? Moreover, practically it will be a mess: individuals will have to spend more time itemising their tax returns, and the Internal Revenue Service, already overwhelmed, will struggle to monitor all the claimed exemptions.

综合而言,这些提议也显示出,特朗普税收政策较其第一个任期有所改变。2017年的《减税及就业法案》(Tax Cuts and Jobs Act)是特朗普最大的立法成就。该法案简化了税收系统,扩大了纳税人基数,为减税扫清了障碍。然而,当下的提议却有着令人眼花缭乱的漏洞。其中许多从道理上根本就说不通,比如,为什么拿工资的人要对全部收入缴税,而收取小费的人却可以为部分收入避税?再者,实际操作起来也会是一团乱麻:人们将不得不花更多的时间逐项报税。而早已不堪重负的美国国税局(Internal Revenue Service)很难核实所有的免税申请。

注释:

《减税及就业法案》(Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, TCJA)于2017年底签署成为法律,是特朗普政府经济政策的核心。TCJA的主要内容包括对企业所得税的大幅削减,将联邦公司税率从35%降至21%,这是美国历史上最大规模的减税之一。该法案还提高了个人标准扣除额,简化了税制,并对高收入者提供了一定的税收优惠。这些措施旨在刺激经济增长,提高企业竞争力,并增加消费者的可支配收入。

The saving grace is that many of Mr Trump’s proposed tax cuts are probably empty promises. Fiscal legislation must make it through Congress to become law. Even if Republicans end up controlling both the Senate and the House, moderates in the party would surely push back against Mr Trump’s zanier proposals. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a long-time Republican economic adviser, argues they are mostly transactional—cheap pledges made to win an election that are easily discarded afterwards. “They don’t come from a place of deep, personal belief,” he says.

值得庆幸的是,特朗普提出的许多减税措施很可能只是空头支票。财政立法必须通过国会批准才能成为法律。即使共和党最终控制了参众两院,党内的温和派也一定会反对特朗普一些更为异想天开的提案。长期担任共和党经济顾问的道格拉斯·霍尔兹-艾金(Douglas Holtz-Eakin)指出,这些体系大多是交易性质的,是为了赢得选举而做出的廉价承诺,事后很容易弃之不顾。这些提议绝非真心实意,他表示。

But Erica York of the Tax Foundation says Mr Trump could still complicate the debate about how to handle the expiration of the tax cuts of 2017 by throwing unhelpful ideas into the mix. “That’s just going to add to the pressures that Congress faces next year,” she says. And there is one type of tax Mr Trump really does care about: tariffs. Here, too, his promises are inflationary. At the start of his campaign he vowed to place levies of 60% on Chinese products; on October 15th he upped his threat to 2,000% tariffs on Chinese cars.

但税务基金会的艾丽卡·约克(Erica York)表示,特朗普仍有可能抛出一些无益想法,使针对如何解决2017年减税政策到期问题的辩论复杂化。约克说:这只会增加明年国会面临的压力。” 而特朗普真正关心的税种只有关税。在这方面,他的承诺同样也在逐步膨胀。竞选之初,他承诺要对中国产品征收60%的关税。1015日,他把威胁提升到要对中国汽车征收2000%的关税。
翻译组:

Humi 不负韶华,平视世界

Vivifang,顺应周期,爱与自由同时发生


校对组:

Hannah 做个废柴,保持愉快

Ithil, or be more cruel, love, and so be kind

Dreamian,寻找着方向的人,一路走走停停再回首看看


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