在日本捐資扶貧可抵稅還能吃龍蝦

HIRADO, Japan — Tax breaks come in many forms. Charitable gifts. Health care expenses. Mortgage interest payments.

日本平戶市——稅收優惠政策有各種各樣的形式。比如慈善禮品、醫療費用和抵押貸款的利息支付。

In this small fishing village, they come in a cooler.

在這座小漁村，則是裝在冰盒裏送出的。

It is part of the great tax giveaway happening across Japan.

它是日本各地正在實施的大規模減稅的一部分。

Taxpayers who donate money to Hirado get a nice deduction and a shipment of slipper lobsters, spiral-shelled mollusks and oysters.

給平戶市捐錢的納稅人能夠享受到不錯的減免政策，還能得到琵琶蝦、螺類和牡蠣。

Don’t like seafood? Hirado has hundreds of other thank-you gifts, like a monthly vegetable delivery, a fold-up electric bike or a wedding photo shoot with formal wear and hotel stay included.

不喜歡海鮮？平戶另外還準備了數百種答謝禮物，比如每月遞送的蔬菜、摺疊式電動自行車，或者包含正裝和酒店住宿的婚紗攝影。

Donors — 36,000 in one year — now outnumber residents.

目前，捐贈者人數已經超過了居民，一年內達到3.6萬人。

“I think of them as neo-citizens,” said Hirado’s mayor, Naruhiko Kuroda.

平戶市市長黑田稔彥（Naruhiko Kuroda，音）說，“我視他們爲新市民。”

Exploiting a quirk in the country’s tax system, scores of towns with dwindling Populations are supplementing revenue by courting outside donors. The result is a sort of adopt-a-forest program for rural communities — albeit one where the forest reciprocates with gifts.

數十座人口不斷減少的城鎮，正在利用日本稅收系統的一個特點，通過招攬外部捐贈者增加收益。結果就產生了某種針對農村社區的認領樹木項目——只不過這裏代替樹木的是禮品。

Local governments are offering things as diverse as marbled Wagyu beef and hot-spring vacations. Last month one city in central Japan, Bizen, attracted 56 million yen with a deal on tablet computers.

當地政府提供了多種多樣的東西，其中包括有大理石般色彩紋理的神戶牛肉和溫泉度假遊。上個月，位於日本中部的城市備前用平板電腦吸引了5600萬日元（約合281萬元人民幣）。

The tablets were available for a donation of 100,000 yen, or about $800. After the tax rebate, the cost to donors was just 2,000 yen.

只要捐助10萬日元，就可獲得平板電腦。減稅之後，捐助者的花費僅爲2000日元。

This year, Japan sweetened the tax benefits. The government views it as a way of addressing stubborn wealth disparities between cities and the countryside.

今年，日本加大了稅收優惠的力度。政府將其視爲應對令人頭疼的城鄉財富差異的一種方式。

Critics, though, say the system has come untethered from its initial purpose, which was to allow city dwellers to support their ancestral towns. The system is known as furusato nozei, or “hometown taxation.” But there is no requirement that donors have any connection to the places, and today few actually do.

不過，批評人士稱，這套名爲“故鄉稅”(furusato nozei)制度已經偏離了最初目的，即讓城市居民爲他們的家鄉提供支持。但是，政府不要求捐贈者與受捐贈的地方有任何關係，而且目前很少有人真的與這些地方有關。

The cost of thank-you gifts is also rising steadily as local governments compete to attract patrons — leaving less to spend on civic projects. Urban areas, where most donors live, end up bearing the cost, according to Takero Doi, a professor at Keio University, since donors’ tax write-offs subtract from other cities’ revenue. “Ultimately, it’s a zero-sum game.”

在地方政府爭相吸引捐款者的同時，禮品的成本也在不斷上升，這導致了市政工程支出的減少。慶應義塾大學(Keio University)教授土居丈朗(Takero Doi)說，捐款的成本最終由大多數捐款者生活的城市地區承擔，由於對捐款者的減稅會導致其他城市的收入減少，“這終究是一場零和博弈。”

Playing the game has been a boon for Hirado.

但這場博弈卻讓平戶市受益無窮。

The town’s heyday was four centuries ago, when it was a bustling trading hub that drew cloth and silver merchants from as far away as Europe. Today it has a cluster of aging tourist hotels, built by overly hopeful developers in the 1970s and ’80s, that sit mostly empty. The population has dropped by half since the 1950s.

這座城市的最鼎盛時期是在四個世紀前，它當時是一座繁忙的貿易中心，吸引着遠及歐洲的布料和銀器商人。如今，這座城市裏還有大量老舊的旅遊酒店，它們都是上世紀70和80年代的開發商盲目樂觀的結果，目前幾乎閒置。自從上世紀50年代以來，平戶市的人口已經減少了一半。

While Hirado began accepting donations soon after the program began in 2008, it only recently started to earn serious money. Taking cues from online shopping, it set up a website where donors can choose gifts and a point system to claim rewards. It takes a donation of 10,000 yen, or $84, to get the seafood delivery.

平戶市在2008年項目啓動之後就開始接受捐款了，但直到最近才收到一些大筆的捐贈。受到網絡購物的啓發，平戶市設立了一個網站和積分系統，捐款者可以在網站上選擇禮物，並通過積分系統要求獲得獎勵。捐款達1萬日元就可以獲贈海鮮禮包。

The town earned 1.46 billion yen in donations in its latest fiscal year, which ended in March, or about $12 million — 7 percent of its annual budget. That was the most of any local government in Japan.

這座城市在3月份結束的最新財年獲得了14.6億日元的捐款，相當於年度預算的7%，這個數字居日本各地方政府之首。

Some taxpayers are enjoying a windfall, too.

一些納稅人也嚐到了甜頭。

“My wife saw something about it on TV and said it would be a good way to save on taxes,” said Shigeki Kanamori, a wealthy real estate developer in Tokyo.

“我妻子在電視上看到的，她說這是節約稅費的好辦法，”富裕的東京房地產開發商金森茂樹（Shigeki Kanamori，音）說。

Mr. Kanamori gave 3 million yen, or $25,000, to a total of about 200 municipalities. In return, he received gifts worth roughly half that amount. Out of pocket, the haul cost him just 2,000 yen, about the price of lunch at a Tokyo restaurant.

金森茂樹向大約200個地方捐了300萬日元。作爲回報，他獲得了價值相當於這個數額一半的禮物。最後算下來，這些東西總共花了他2000日元，相當於在東京的餐廳吃一頓午餐。

“My biggest problem is that my refrigerator’s full,” he said. He has written a book about where to find the best deals.

“我最大的問題是冰箱滿了，”金森茂樹說。他還寫了本書，介紹怎樣找到最划算的捐贈項目。

Mr. Kanamori expects to do even better this year. The government doubled the upper limit on tax deductions on April 1, to 20 percent of the value of the donor’s municipal tax bill. That, combined with increasingly assertive soliciting, could spur a big increase in donations, which hit 14 billion yen nationwide last year, about $113 million.

金森茂樹估計今年的情況還會更好。4月1日，政府把稅收減免的上限提高了一倍，增至捐贈者市政稅務賬單價值的20%。再加上越來越堅定的索捐呼聲，可能會推動捐款數額的大幅度增加。去年，全國的捐款數額達到了140億日元。

Some are concerned that the escalating extravagance of the thank-you gifts could hurt public support for the initiative.

有人擔心，越來越昂貴的答謝禮物會損害公衆對這項政策的支持。

“We want this to be a permanent fixture of the tax system, not just a kind of short-lived festival,” said Mr. Kuroda, the Hirado mayor. “I’m happy about our success, but I’m also worried.”

“我們希望它能成爲稅收制度的一個固定部分，而不僅僅是一個短期計劃，”平戶市市長黑田稔彥說。“我對我們的成功感到高興，但我同時也很擔心。”

Hirado’s gifts cost the city a little less than half the money it receives, Mr. Kuroda said. All are from local producers, he said, for an additional economic boost.

黑田稔彥說，平戶市的禮物所用的花費，略低於它所獲得的資金的一半。他說，這些禮物均由當地生產商提供，從而能額外促進經濟發展。

But some towns are pouring 70 or 80 percent of the value of donations back into thank-you gifts, and are less focused on using local goods. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, which supervises local governments, recently issued a directive calling for “self-restraint” in the selection of gifts.

但是，有些城鎮把所獲捐贈的70%或80%都用在了答謝禮物上，而且也不太堅持使用當地商品。管理地方政府的總務省(Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications)近日發佈了一項命令，呼籲各政府在挑選禮物時進行“自律”。

Defenders of the system say its merits more than make up for its flaws.

該制度的維護者稱，它的好處足以彌補其缺陷。

Japan’s regions already depend heavily on outside subsidies — like revenue transfers from the central government, farm supports and public spending on rural roads and bridges. Much of the money is opaquely handled and poorly spent, experts say.

日本的一些地區已經十分依賴外部的補貼——比如中央政府下撥的資金、農業補貼，以及農村用於修建道路和橋樑的公共支出。專家稱，很大一部分錢是暗箱操作，而且沒有妥善支出。

In contrast, furusato nozei is more personal and transparent, according to supporters. Recipients provide a list of proposed uses for donors’ money upfront and let them choose which ones to pay for. Hideo Kishimoto, the mayor of Genkai, said the competition it fostered was healthy and was spurring local innovation.

支持者說，相比之下，“故鄉稅”更加個性化和透明。接收者列出一個如何使用捐款的項目清單，讓捐款者自己選擇爲哪項用途投錢。玄海町長岸本英雄(Hideo Kishimoto)說，它所引發的競爭是有益的，激發了當地的創新。

“It’s like crowdfunding,” he said. Popular causes include child care subsidies and computers for local schools.

“這就像是衆籌，”他說。受歡迎的項目包括保育補貼和爲當地中小學購置電腦。

Takayuki Fukuoka, an asparagus farmer in Hirado, said he was earning about 30 percent of his income from gift requests. He said he hoped the program would open farmers’ eyes to new ways of marketing their produce, instead of relying on the monopolistic wholesale system that dominates Japanese agriculture.

在平戶種植蘆筍的農民福岡孝行（Takayuki Fukuoka，音）說，他30%的收入來自贈送答謝禮物產生的需求。他說，希望該項目可以讓農民們發現營銷作物的更多辦法，不再只是依靠在日本農業占主導地位的壟斷性批發系統。

“This has been a very closed-off place until now,” he said.

“迄今爲止，這一直是一塊封閉的領域，”他說。

Hirado town officials keep innovating. They are working on a smartphone-based system that would turn reward points into a virtual currency donors could spend at local businesses.

平戶市的官員還在不斷創新。他們正在開發一個基於智能手機的系統，讓捐款者可以把積分轉換成能在當地商家使用的虛擬貨幣。

“We know we won’t be on top forever,” said Mr. Kuroda. “We have to get people invested in Hirado, and strengthen the Hirado brand.”

“我們知道我們不會永遠領先，”黑田稔彥說。“我們必須爲平戶投資人力，強化平戶的這個品牌。”