論境外天堂對公司治理的影響—以租稅政策與資訊隱密為中心

Abstract

境外天堂以其租稅政策與資訊隱密揚名於國際，國際社會多以「租稅天堂」或「境外金融中心」稱之。雖然目前已有許多文獻致力於研究這些境外天堂是否有害於國際金融和租稅體系的穩定性，乃至於人類整體生活福祉；但致力於研究這些境外天堂對於公司治理之影響者卻仍如鳳毛麟角，儘管早在20與21世紀之交的安隆公司弊案即已將該影響明確無遺地顯露出來。本文嘗試填補此一缺憾，惟宥於使用境外天堂者率皆為跨國公司，且公司治理的討論不能捨棄公司及其本質不論，故本文將先探究跨國公司的公司治理為何相較於一般國內公司來得迥異、困難與複雜──因其跨國交易的本質與複雜的組織結構使然。而後申論境外天堂的特殊租稅政策與資訊隱密如何使(跨國公司的)公司治理問題更形嚴峻。如果說資訊隱密是境外天堂建立起的資訊高牆，用以抵擋公司外部人及主管機關對於內部人祕密持有之公司資訊的獲悉與查核；則其殊異的租稅政策即為「資訊黑洞」，能將一切的公司資訊吞沒，以使跨國資訊交換處於自始給付不能的狀態。欲處理此等資訊不對稱的問題，OECD及FATF等國際組織，在履行其打擊逃漏稅與防制洗錢/恐怖主義融資等組織使命的過程當中，於提升境外天堂透明度上所做的努力確有些許的幫助，惟缺乏對於境外天堂的形成原因與營運模式更深入的瞭解，吾人將難以想像該等努力能竟其功──畢竟希望取得資訊之一方本來即是「資訊弱勢者」，在未提供對造等價的配合誘因之下，實在無法確保對造一定會出示完整與正確的資訊。境外天堂大可採用「承諾但不履行」的策略，於拋開國際主流社會對其施加之壓力的同時(透過「承諾」)，利用其資訊優越與查核困難之有利地位，拖延與癱瘓任何有意義的國際資訊交換。因此有些學者即主張：應建置一個具有國際性與橫跨各國政府間的資訊交易市場，以使跨國資訊交換更加順利與效率，並有利於所有參與者(包括資訊的買賣國雙方)。本文作者基本上相當認同此等觀點，至少相對於OECD或FATF目前所採行之強暴脅迫的「合作互惠」模式而言──資訊本來即非免費的商品，只是吾人長久以來(在國家主權的脈絡之下)將其視為理所當然而已。

Offshore havens- formally known as tax havens or offshore financial centers in the international tax or financial regimes- are largely small countries or jurisdicttions famous (or infamous?) for their tax policy and financial information secrecy. Though a lot of research has been done to determine whether such havens have caused or will cause damage to the stability of international tax or financial system(s), and the total well-being of all humans for that matter as well, much less has been devoted to their impact on corporate governance, which made its prominent appearing in the Eron case during the turn of the 21st century. Since only the miltinational corporations would use offshore havens as part of their business strategies or planning, and one cannot seriously talk about corporate governance without notifying the corporate in the first place, this thesis would try to fulfill that void (impact of offshore havens on corporate governance) by first acknowledging that the corporate governance (structure) of miltinational corporations is much more different, difficult and complicated than that of domestic firms due to both their transnational-dealing nature and complex organizational structure, and then going into discussing how offshore havens’ tax policy and financial information secrecy each in general would aggrevate the situation. Figuratively speaking, if the financial information secrecy of offshore havens is the Graet Wall to protect any information insiders secretly held from outsiders or government autority, the special tax policy of offshore havens is the black hole sucking all the information so that there won’t be any effective exchange of information at all. To cure these information-asymmetry problems, international organizations like OECD or FATF eager to fulfill their missions of fighting tax evasion and money laundry/terrorism financing by bringing transparency into offshore havens would help, but without deeper undeastanding of offshore havens and how they make their livings, one would never truly succeed for that the information seekers are naturally and substantially disadvantageous to the infornation holders/givers in the first place, especially given that there’s no motivation and benefits to the latter to cooperate with the former, let alone there might even come a lot of harm to them. Offshore havens could simply adapt “commit but not comply” strategy to delay and retard any meningful exchange of information while taking the heat off imposed by the mainstream international society (by simply “committing”). Hence some scholars have proposed that an international or tran-govermental information market would make transnational exchange of information more sucessful and efficient, and beneficial to all countries and jurisdictions involved. The author of this thesis prefers this method to oppressive and extortionary one the OECD and FATF currently employed to deal with information problems created by offshore havens- information is never free; we just take it for granted for a long time.