来源：《华盛顿邮报》
刊登日期：2021年4月15日
There was a rare bipartisanship at a Senate Finance Committee hearing April 13, as Republican ranking member Mike Crapo expressed agreement with Democratic chairman Ron Wyden’s determination to close the huge federal “tax gap” — that is, the difference between what taxpayers legally owe the government and what they pay. The gap is estimated at $441 billion per year in the 2011-2013 period, the most recent for which official data exists. The annual amount has almost certainly grown since then, due, in part, to the surge of cryptocurrencies, which barely existed in 2013 but now have an aggregate global value approaching $2 trillion. The Internal Revenue Service commissioner, Charles Rettig, told Mr. Wyden that he would not be surprised if the tax gap has reached $1 trillion a year.
在4月13日的参议院财政听证会上出现了罕见的两党合作，共和党高级成员迈克·拉波表示同意委员会主席罗恩·怀登(民主党人)决心缩小巨大的联邦“税收缺口”——即纳税人依法应缴的税款与他们实际支付的税款之间的差额。据估计，2011-2013年期间每年的缺口为4410亿美元，这是有官方记录以来的最新数据。从那以后，每年的数字几乎肯定会增长，部分原因是加密货币的激增，加密货币在2013年几乎不存在，但现在其全球总价值接近2万亿美元。美国国税局局长查尔斯·雷蒂格告诉怀登，如果税收缺口达到每年1万亿美元，他不会感到惊讶。
That eye-popping amount would have offset about a third of the fiscal 2020 federal budget deficit. To be sure, those are hypotheses, not realistic goals, for two reasons. First, even a very aggressive federal tax-compliance effort could not eliminate all of the tax gap. Second, Mr. Rettig’s guesstimate may overstate the case. The most substantial published academic assessment, a 2019 paper by former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers and University of Pennsylvania finance expert Natasha Sarin, projected a $750 billion yearly average tax gap between 2020 and 2029, and predicted that about $115 billion of it could be regained annually through enhanced enforcement.
这一令人瞠目结舌的数额相当于2020财年联邦预算赤字的约三分之一。可以肯定的是，这些都是假设，不是现实的目标，原因有二。首先，即使是非常积极的联邦税收合规努力也不能消除全部的税收缺口。第二，雷蒂格先生的猜测可能夸大了事实。发表的最具实质性的学术评估报告是前财政部长劳伦斯H.萨默斯和宾夕法尼亚大学财务专家娜塔莎·沙林在2019年发表的一篇论文，预计2020年至2029年期间，年均税收缺口将达7500亿美元，并预测通过加强执法，每年可收回约1150亿美元。
The bottom line, though, is clear: The tax gap is real, it is large, and it disproportionately reflects taxes owed, but not paid, by relatively well-to-do people. (The IRS has the help of employers in collecting taxes on ordinary wage-earners.) One area for reform — that probably would not require legislation — would be for the IRS to see whether it can generate tax gap data in a more timely manner; an update on the 2011-2013 figures will not be available until 2022. Meaningful progress in collection, however, will require more resources and, as Mr. Rettig told the hearing, modernized legal and regulatory authorities.
然而，底线是明确的：税收缺口是真实存在的，而且很大，并且相对富裕的人欠缴税款的比例更高(美国国税局在向普通工薪阶层征税方面得到了雇主的帮助)。改革的一个领域——可能不需要立法——是让IRS看看自己能否更及时地生成税收缺口数据；2011-2013年的最新数据要到2022年才能获得。然而，要想取得有意义的进展，就需要更多的资源，而且正如雷蒂格在听证会上所说，还需要使法律和监管机构现代化。
Along with Ms. Sarin’s recruitment to a key Treasury Department policy position, and the Biden administration’s request for a 10.4 percent IRS spending increase, the recent Senate hearing is the latest welcome sign that tax compliance will receive the emphasis and the funding it needs, after years of neglect in part due to Republican-supported budget cuts. If Mr. Crapo’s remark represents a shift in his party’s long-standing hostility to the IRS, it could signal a stronger agency. GOP recognition that it’s not responsible to favor both lower tax rates for top earners and weak enforcement of them would be as constructive as it is overdue.
除了招募Sarin女士担任财政部重要政策职位，以及拜登政府要求为美国国税局增加10.4%的开支，最近的参议院听证会是最新一个受欢迎的迹象，表明税务合规将得到重视以及所需的资金，多年来，部分由于共和党支持的预算削减而被忽视。如果克拉波的话代表了共和党对国税局长期以来的敌意的转变，那么这可能意味着国税局将变得更强大。共和党认识到，既支持对高收入者降低税率，又削弱税收执法能力是不负责任的，这将是建设性的，因为早就应该这样做了。