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过去30年中,税收学术研究的一个核心前提是,资本的流动性高于劳动的流动性。最近,有些学者,如Edward Kleinbard,建议美国应该采取一种流行于斯堪的纳维亚国家的“二元所得税制”。在这种制度之下,由于假设资本具有更高的流动性,资本所得适用的税率大大低于劳动所得的适用税率。本文的观点是这个论断所基于的前提是错误的,因为对美国个人纳税人(相对于法人)而言,其通过将资产转移到海外从而实现避税是受到相当限制的。而且,如果我们把视线投向那些缴纳了大部分所得税的纳税人(如中产阶级和富裕阶层),相关数据表明,他们通过放弃国籍来合法避税的能力并不比通过转移资产避税的能力低多少,而收入稍低的纳税人可以通过移民同时避开所得税和工薪税(以及可能的增值税)。基于此观点,本文提出了(与最近立法潮流相反的)政策建议,认为劳动所得和资本所得都应适用相同的税率,但是这些税率应该和美国公众愿意为公共服务所支出的对价相匹配。
One of the core prerequisites of tax academic research over the past 30 years is that capital is more liquid than labor. Recently, some scholars, such as Edward Kleinbard, suggested that the United States should adopt a “binary income tax system” prevailing in Scandinavian countries. Under this system, given the higher liquidity of capital, the applicable tax rate for capital gains is significantly lower than the applicable tax rate for labor. The argument in this paper is that this assertion is based on the premise that it is wrong for the U.S. individual taxpayer (as opposed to a legal person) to be fairly restrained by tax evasion by moving assets abroad. And if we look to taxpayers who pay the bulk of their income taxes (such as the middle class and the affluent), the numbers indicate that their ability to legally avoid tax by abandoning their nationality is no worse than the ability to tax avoidance by transferring assets The less-paid taxpayer can avoid both income tax and payroll tax (and possible VAT) through immigration. Based on this view, the paper proposes (contrary to recent trends in legislation) policy proposals that the same tax rates apply to both labor and capital gains, but these rates should match the consideration that the U.S. public is willing to pay for public services.