经济学人:为向死亡征税而辩(1)

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The case for taxing death 为向死亡征税而辩

How to balance people's desire to bequeath assets with the unfairness of inheritance. 如何用继承的不公平去平衡人们对遗赠资产的欲望。

No tax is popular. 没有一种税受人待见。

But one attracts particular venom¹. 但是，有一种税招致特别的怨恨。

Inheritance tax is routinely seen as the least fair by Britons and Americans. 在英国人和美国人眼里，继承税通常是最缺少公平的。

This hostility² spans income brackets. 这种敌意贯穿各个收入阶层。

Indeed, surveys suggest that opposition³ to inheritance and estate taxes (one levied⁴ on heirs and the other on legacies) is even stronger among the poor than the rich. 实际上，各种调查显示，对继承税和遗产税（前者对继承人征收，后者对遗产征收）的反对，在穷人中甚至比在富人中更为强烈。

Politicians know a vote-winner when they see one. 政客们知道怎么去赢得选票。

The estate of a dead adult American is 95% less likely to face tax now than in the 1960s. 如今，死去的成年美国人的遗产比上世纪60年代，少了95%的面对税收的可能性。

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. 而且共和党意欲一条道走到黑：众议院已经通过了一项税改计划，该计划会到2025年完全废除各种“死亡税”。

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. 二战前有一段时间，在死亡税和收入税之间，英国人一度更加有可能缴纳前者；如今，不足5%的遗产引起税务人员的注意。

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. 不仅英美，在经合组织国家中，来自这些税的收入作为政府总收入的占比，自上世纪60年代以来也急剧下降了。

Many other countries have gone down the same path. 许多其他国家走过了同样的道路。

In 2004 even the egalitarian Swedes decided⁵ that their inheritance tax should be abolished. 甚至主张平均主义的瑞典也在2004年决定，他们的遗产税应当被废除。

Yet this trend towards trifling⁶ or zero estate taxes ought to give pause. 然而，这种朝向微量或者零遗产税的趋势应当暂停。

 

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