2020年考研英语一阅读 Text 4 原文翻译及答案解析

Last Thursday, the French Senate passed a digital services tax, which would impose an entirely new tax on large multinationals that provide digital services to consumers or users in France. Digital services include everything from providing a platform for selling goods and services online to targeting advertising based on user data, and the tax applies to gross revenue from such services. Many French politicians and media outlets have referred to this as a " GAFA tax," meaning that it is designed to apply primarily to companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon—in other words, multinational tech companies based in the United States.

上周四，法国参议院通过了一项数字服务税，该税将对向法国消费者或用户提供数字服务的大型跨国公司征收全新税种。数字服务包括从提供在线销售商品和服务的平台，到基于用户数据定向投放广告等所有服务，该税适用于此类服务的总收入。许多法国政界人士和媒体将此称为“GAFA税”，意味着它主要针对谷歌、苹果、Facebook和亚马逊等公司——换言之，总部位于美国的跨国科技公司。

The digital services tax now awaits the signature of President Emmanuel Macron, who has expressed support for the measure, and it could go into effect within the next few weeks. But it has already sparked significant controversy, with the United States trade representative opening an investigation into whether the tax discriminates against American companies, which in tum could lead to trade sanctions against France.

这项数字服务税目前正等待总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙的签署，他已表示支持该措施，且该税可能在未来几周内生效。但它已经引发了重大争议，美国贸易代表已就该税是否歧视美国公司展开调查，这反过来可能导致对法国的贸易制裁。

The French tax is not just a unilateral move by one country in need of revenue. Instead, the digital services tax is part of a much larger trend, with countries over the past few years proposing or putting in place an alphabet soup of new international tax provisions. They have included Britain's DPT. (diverted profits tax), Australia's MAAL (multmat1onal anti-avoidance law), and India's SEP (significant economic presence) test, to name but a few. At the same time, the European Union, Spain, Britain and several other countries have all seriously contemplated digital services taxes.

法国的这项税不仅仅是一个急需收入的国家单方面行动。相反，数字服务税是一个更大趋势的一部分，过去几年各国提出或实施了一系列新的国际税收规定。其中包括英国的DPT（转移利润税）、澳大利亚的MAAL（跨国反避税法）和印度的SEP（重大经济存在）测试等，仅举几例。同时，欧盟、西班牙、英国和其他几个国家都认真考虑过数字服务税。

These unilateral developments differ in their specifics, but they are all designed to tax multinationals on income and revenue that countries believe they should have a right to tax, even if international tax rules do not grant them that right. In other words, they all share a view that the international tax system has failed to keep up with the current economy.

这些单边发展在具体细节上有所不同，但它们都旨在对跨国公司的收入和收益征税，各国认为他们应有权征税，即使国际税收规则并未授予他们这种权利。换言之，它们都持有一种观点，即国际税收体系未能跟上当前经济的发展。

In response to these many unilateral measures, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is currently working with 131 countries to reach a consensus by the end of 2020 on an international solution. Both France and the United States are involved in the organization's work, but France's digital services tax and the American response raise questions about what the future holds for the international tax system.

针对这些众多单边措施，经济合作与发展组织（OECD）目前正在与131个国家合作，以期在2020年底前就国际解决方案达成共识。法国和美国都参与了该组织的工作，但法国的数字服务税和美国的反应引发了关于国际税收体系未来走向的问题。

France's planned tax is a clear warning: Unless a broad consensus can be reached on reforming the international tax system, other nations are likely to follow suit, and American companies will face a cascade of different taxes from dozens of nations that will prove burdensome and costly.

法国计划中的税是一个明确警告：除非能在改革国际税收体系上达成广泛共识，否则其他国家可能会效仿，美国公司将面临来自数十个国家的一系列不同税收，这些税收将变得繁重且昂贵。