The Power of Taxes To Bend Behavior, Often in Unexpected Ways
税收扭曲行为——以你意想不到的方式
Taxes are incredibly powerful things. Tax something and you will get less of it. But you might also get more of something you did not expect. Taxes are the king of generating unintended consequences. A huge part of human ingenuity (unfortunately) seems to be constantly geared towards evading taxes. This is one reason I favor completely eliminating the corporate income tax — way too many otherwise productive resources are marshaled towards managing the consequences of these taxes.
税收具有无穷魔力。如果你向某物征税，那么它就会变少。不过你也会得到一些意外收获。税收是非意图后果的制造之王。人类的很大一部分聪明才智看起来都（很不幸的）用在了逃避税收上。这是我为什么倾向于完全废除公司所得税的一个原因。太多生产性资源被配置于对付这些税收造成的后果了。
Last weekend I was in Cabo visiting a few friends and practicing my Spanish. Many of the buildings in town (at least away from the resort areas) look like this:
上周末我去Cabo城【译注：位于墨西哥下加利福尼亚半岛的一座城市】拜访一帮朋友顺便练习西班牙语。许多建筑（至少远离度假村的地方）看起来像这样：
This is a small retail commercial building with going concerns on the first floor (actually finished pretty nicely) but rebar and stuff sticking up from what looks like an unfinished second floor. This is just one of many, many buildings that look like this. My friend, who has run a resort in Cabo for decades, asked me what I thought was going on. I said I assumed it was some sort of third world thing, perhaps a lack of financing that meant the first floor has to operate to generate cash flow for the second floor.
这是一栋一楼正在营业的小商业建筑（实际上一楼做的很棒），但是屋顶朝天戳着的钢筋和其他建筑材料使得二楼看起来没有完成。这只是许许多多同类建筑中的一个。我那位在Cabo开了几十年零售店的朋友问我：你觉得这是怎么回事？。我说我觉得这像一个第三世界的产物，资金短缺使得需要用一楼产生的现金流来支持二楼的工程。
He answered that yes, there was very little financing for small business and real estate development so that sort of thing did happen. But what was really going on here is tax management. Until construction is completed, this structure is taxed as raw land rather than as a valuable commercial building. It was typical practice to get approved for a two story building in the original plans, then stop construction after completing the first floor (which was all that was wanted anyway) and act like the building is still under construction. Voila (ed: lol, oops) — ugly building but hefty tax reduction.
他答道，小型企业和小房地产开发商的很少融资，所以这种事情确实会发生。但是在这里，真正的原因是避税。直到完工之前，这个地块都会被当作未开发土地而不是按有价值商业建筑征税。这栋建筑是个典型案例：最初获批时规划了两层，在完成第一层后停工（本来就是这么打算的），这栋建筑就像是仍然在施工一样。啊哈，丑陋但是可以躲掉很多税负的建筑。
For those of you who want to write this off as a third world phenomenon, I will offer a similar example from personal experience. Some years ago, because I did not have enough value-destroying investments in my life, I bought some raw land in Hawaii. It is actually in a gated community, about half-built-out, but if you drive past my land you will likely see a cow on it.
假如你认为这是第三世界特有现象，那我再举个相似的例子。若干年前，在我还没做那么多亏本投资之前，我在夏威夷买了一块荒地。它实际上位于一个封闭社区内，大概建好了一半，但是如果你开车经过我那块地，你会发现上边有一头奶牛。
What is a cow doing in a gated community on residential land? Well, that is the point. Without the cow, the land gets taxed as residential land. With the cow, the land gets taxed as ranch land at perhaps a tenth the rate. The homeowners association helps those of us with raw land to split the cost of the cows.
在建于住宅用地之上的封闭社区里放一头奶牛干啥呢？嗯，这个才是重点。如果没有这头奶牛的话，我这块荒地会被当成住宅用地征税。而有了这头奶牛，这块地则会被当成税率只有住宅用地十分之一的牧场征税。业主协会帮助我们这样的业主分担奶牛养殖的费用。
Update: Here are the Hawaiian cows, next to one of my neighbor’s front gate. While they are more attractive than the exposed rebar on the building in Cabo, they serve the same purpose.
更新：这些就是夏威夷的奶牛，旁边是我邻居的前门。虽然这些牛比Cabo城里那些裸露钢筋要好看一点，但是它们的作用却是一样的。
翻译：Luis Rightcon
校对：龙泉
编辑：辉格@whigzhou