税收底层逻辑的世纪变迁与启示——以数字经济下的“亚马逊税”为例

Century Change of Taxation Underlying Logic and Its Enlightenment:A Case Study of“Amazon Tax”under Digital Economy

随着数字经济、特别是平台经济的迅猛发展,税收的底层逻辑迎来了根本性变革,集中体现在三种不同性质的"亚马逊税"上。第一种"亚马逊税",是指传统税制试图实现对数字经济的"全覆盖";第二种"亚马逊税",是指作为平台经济的代表,亚马逊等平台企业试图对入驻其平台的商户收取"服务费";第三种"亚马逊税",是指在传统税制覆盖数字经济的尝试失败之后,面对数字经济平台对商户收费的"反攻",一些国家开征的"数字服务税"。而最后一种"数字服务税"又有单边、双边、多边等多种博弈形式,试图颠覆过去国际税收"自下而上"的治理逻辑,转变为"自上而下"。在税收的底层逻辑当中,自国家出现的数千年来"国家税收"一直是主体,而现在"国际税收"的分量明显加重,是为税收底层逻辑的"千年之痒";随着20世纪以来经济全球化的快速发展,"国家税收"正向"国际税收"加速演变,是为"百年之变"。

With the rapid development of digital economy,especially platform economy,the underlying logic of taxation has undergone a fundamental change,which is mainly reflected in three different types of"Amazon tax".The first kind of"Amazon tax"refers to the phenomenon that the traditional tax system tries to achieve the"full coverage"of digital economy;the second kind of"Amazon tax"refers to the phenomenon that,as a representative of platform economy,Amazon and other platform enterprises try to collect"service fees"from the merchants settled on their platform;and the third kind of"Amazon tax"refers to the"digital service tax"levied by some countries in the face of the"counterattack"against the merchant charges by the digital economy platform after the traditional tax system fails in its attempt to cover digital economy.And the last kind of"digital service tax"has a variety of game forms including unilateral,bilateral and multilateral ones,trying to subvert the past"bottom-up"governance logic of international tax and change to a"top-down"mode.In the underlying logic of taxation,"national taxation"has been the mainstay for thousands of years since the emergence of the state,and now the portion of"international taxation"has increased significantly,and this is the so-called"millennium itch"of the underlying logic of taxation while with the rapid development of economic globalization since the 20 th century,the evolution from national tax to international tax is accelerating,and this is the so-called"century change".