一家典型的剛果公司，如果毛利率是20%，那么要上繳的稅將高達利潤的340%。一些僥幸存活下來的公司只能給稅務員塞些剛果法郎以求他們能放過一馬。對于稅務員，這當然不錯了；但對國家來說，恐怕就不這樣了。企業(yè)精神自始就被這些荒謬的規(guī)定扼殺了。

Every year since 2003 the International Finance Corporation (part of the World Bank) has compiled a report on red tape around the world. “Doing Business 2012”, which was published on October 20th, reports progress on several fronts.

自2003年起，國際金融公司（世界銀行的一個機構(gòu)）每年都會編撰報告以點評世界各國的官僚作風。在前幾期的基礎上，《營商環(huán)境報告2012》于10月20號出版，報告了這方面的最新動態(tài)。

“Doing Business” does not delve into complicated areas full of tricky trade-offs, such as regulating banks or environmental pollution. Rather, it looks at rules that ought to be simple but often aren’t. How long, for example, does it take to register a company? In New Zealand it takes one day and costs 0.4% of the local annual income per head. In Congo it takes 65 days, involves ten steps and costs 551% of income per head.

《營商環(huán)境報告》并不對如銀行業(yè)管理和環(huán)境保護等復雜和要求高超平衡技巧的領域進行深究，而是著眼于那些應該簡單而往往并非如此的規(guī)章制度。比如，需要多久才能注冊一個公司？在新西蘭，只需一天的功夫，花費當?shù)厝司晔杖氲?.4%就可以了；而在剛果，你需要花費65天，歷經(jīng)十個步驟，費用更是高達當?shù)厝司晔杖氲?51%。

In Kenya, by no means the most bureaucratic state in Africa, firms that register incur an annual secretarial fee of $220, plus more for lawyers’ bills. This discourages small firms from becoming formal, which means they can’t borrow money from a bank. Those that register find the paperwork labyrinthine and confusing. “We found it was very hard to see what was ahead of us,” says Alix Grubel, a director of Kenya Buzz, a digital publisher.

而即便在肯尼亞，這個非洲大陸上絕不可能是最官僚主義的國家，那些注冊的公司每年要花費220美元的手續(xù)費，這還沒算上律師的費用。這就使得小企業(yè)難以變得正規(guī)，這也意味著他們沒法從銀行借錢。而那些注冊的公司則發(fā)現(xiàn)那些文書像迷宮一樣讓人困惑。一個數(shù)字出版公司Kenya Buzz的高管阿歷克斯·格魯貝爾說，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)很難弄清楚未來還有什么。

Other procedures the IFC measures include registering a property (which takes one day in Portugal, 513 in Kiribati); obtaining a construction permit (five steps in Denmark, 51 in Russia); enforcing a simple contract through the courts (150 days in Singapore, 1,420 in India); and winding up an insolvent firm (creditors in Japan recover 92.7 cents on the dollar, those in Chad get nothing at all).

納入IFC考量的其他程序還有財產(chǎn)登記（葡萄牙1天就行，基里巴斯要513天）；獲得建設許可（丹麥要5個步驟，俄羅斯則要51個）；通過法院執(zhí)行一個簡單的合同（新加坡要150天，印度則要1420天）；資不抵債的公司破產(chǎn)清算（日本的債務人每一美元可得清償92.7美分，在乍得，一個子兒都沒有）。

Although the IFC has not been publishing red-tape league tables for long, it has already shamed most of the world’s governments into cutting a few pointless rules (see chart). In the past six years, 94% of the 174 economies surveyed have streamlined at least some processes. In the past year alone, 125 countries implemented reforms. Globally, the average time it takes to register a business has fallen from 50 days to 31 since 2003, and the average cost from 89% of per capita income to 36%. Until recently in Paraguay, companies were obliged to have every page of their accounts stamped with a judge’s seal. No longer.

盡管IFC出版這份官僚主義排行榜時間還不長，但已令世界多數(shù)國家感到羞愧，并削減了一些毫無意義的規(guī)定。在過去六年間，列入調(diào)查名單的174個國家中，94%都好歹取得了一些進步。僅就去年來說，就有125個國家實施了改革。從全球來看，注冊一個企業(yè)所需的平均時間已從2003年的50天下將到了31天，而所需費用也從人均年收入的89%下降到了36%。直到最近，巴拉圭的企業(yè)都還需要在每頁帳冊上都蓋上一個法官的印章，這種情況怕是再也不會有了。

Cutting red tape makes countries richer, if the 873 peer-reviewed articles and 2,332 working papers that use the “Doing Business” data are anything to go by. A study in Mexico found that simplified municipal licensing led to a 5% increase in the number of registered companies and a 2.2% increase in jobs. It also lowered prices for consumers. Bankruptcy reform in Brazil caused the cost of credit to fall by 22%. Countries with flexible labour rules saw real output rise by 17.8% more than those with rigid ones.

依據(jù)那些引用《營商環(huán)境報告》的873篇同行審閱的學術論文和2332篇工作論文，減少這些繁文縟節(jié)會使國家更富裕。墨西哥的一項研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，簡化的市政許可會帶來注冊公司5%的增長，并帶來2.2%的工作崗位增加。這還將降低消費者的支出。巴西的破產(chǎn)改革使信貸費用降低了22%。用工制度靈活的國家實際產(chǎn)出比那些用戶制度僵化的國家高17.8%。

And you do not have to be a tea-party fan to agree that some corporate tax rates are too high. To compare apples with apples, the IFC looked at how each country would tax a domestically owned ceramics firm with 60 employees, two plots of land and a pre-tax profit margin of 20%. Five countries (Sri Lanka, Argentina, the Comoros Islands, the Gambia and Congo) would hit such a firm with taxes exceeding 100% of its profits. This is of course self-defeating. When taxes are too high, no one pays them. Bolivia, for example, tries to grab 80% of a firm’s profits but ends up raising far less, as a proportion of GDP, than low-tax Chile, which accordingly has much better roads, schools and public health care.

不必是一個茶黨的擁護者，你都會同意有些國家的公司稅率太高了。IFC考察每個國家對一個有兩塊土地、稅前利潤率為20%、員工60人的內(nèi)資陶瓷企業(yè)如何征稅。五個國家（斯里蘭卡、阿根廷、科摩羅群島、岡比亞和剛果）向這家公司收取的稅額將超過其利潤的100%。這顯然會適得其反。若稅收過高，沒有人會繳納。例如，玻利維亞試圖征收公司利潤的80%，但收取的稅以GDP的比例來衡量還低于實行低稅率的智利，而相應地，后者擁有好得多的道路、學校和公共衛(wèi)生。

This year’s report adds two new measures. One is electricity. A young entrepreneur in Liberia who builds a new warehouse must wait on average 586 days to connect it to the power grid. In Ukraine it takes 274 days; in Germany only 17. Guess which of these countries has a thriving manufacturing sector?

今年的報告還增加了兩個衡量標準。一個是電力。一個利比里亞的年輕企業(yè)家需要586天才能給新建的倉庫通電，在烏克蘭需要274天，而在德國只需要17天。你說，那個國家的制造業(yè)更發(fā)達？

The other new measure is transparency. How easy is it to find out what the rules are, how to comply with them and what it will cost? In most countries in Africa and the Middle East, a businessperson must meet an official face-to-face to discover such things. In more business-friendly places, it is all published online. This not only reduces hassles; it also reduces costs. Where fees are transparent, they tend to be lower. In countries where it is easy to find the documents required to import goods, it takes 21 days on average to import them; in countries where such forms are hidden in a bureaucrat’s desk, it takes twice as long.

另一個衡量標準是透明度。怎樣才能找些這些規(guī)章制度？如何才算遵照執(zhí)行？需要花費多少？在非洲和中東的大多數(shù)國家，商人們必須親自與官員會面才能搞清楚這些東西。而在那些商業(yè)友好的地區(qū)，這些內(nèi)容網(wǎng)上都有。這不僅減少了麻煩，還降低了費用。而那些費用透明的地區(qū)，花費往往也較低。在那些能輕松找到進口貨物所需文檔的國家，貨物進口平均只需要21天；而在這些文件淹沒于的官僚主義書桌的那些國家，要花費兩倍的時間。

The IFC singles out several countries for plaudits. Morocco, Moldova and Macedonia improved the most in the past year. South Korea has “sunsetted” more than 600 regulations and 3,500 administrative rules since 2008. Song Yae-ri, the founder of Seoulist, a website that publishes reviews of the hottest food and coolest bars in Seoul, says it was easy to register her firm. “All it took was a trip to the tax office, where I filled out an A4 sheet of paper. It took five minutes,” she says.

IFC還特別稱贊了幾個國家。摩洛哥、摩爾多瓦和馬其頓在過去這些年改進最多。韓國自2008年已取消了超過600份規(guī)章和3500份行政規(guī)定。Song Yae-ri是首爾一家評論熱門食物和酒吧的網(wǎng)站Seoulist的創(chuàng)辦人，她說，注冊一家公司很容易，你所要做的就是跑一趟稅務局。我就在那里填寫了一份A4的紙，只消5分鐘就行了。

In Kenya, by contrast, many businesses feel they have no choice but to employ a “consultant” to wait in queues and, ahem, deal with awkward officials. Others keep a low profile to avoid the predatory state. Honey Care, a Kenyan firm that sells bee hives to farmers and buys back the honey, finds it can avoid red tape by operating out in the countryside, far from the nearest bureaucrat. The downside is that there are hardly any roads.

相比之下，在肯尼亞，許多企業(yè)主覺得他們別無他法只能雇個“顧問”來排隊，對付那些打著官腔愛刁難人的官員。其他一些人則保持低調(diào)，以免招惹這個捕食國家。Honey Care是肯尼亞一家向農(nóng)民出售蜂箱并回收蜂蜜的公司，它發(fā)現(xiàn)在在遠離政府機構(gòu)的鄉(xiāng)下經(jīng)營公司就可以避免官僚主義的侵害。不利的一面是那里幾乎沒有道路。

Rich countries score better than poor ones on the IFC’s measures, with Singapore pipping Hong Kong to the top slot (see chart), but there is no room for complacency. America comes fourth, yet in the past year it enacted no reforms at all in the areas “Doing Business” measures. Its tax code is as simple to understand as a thesis on post-structuralism translated into Klingon. And some American states insist on costly licences for florists, interior designers and barbers. Now there’s a rule that needs trimming.

根據(jù)IFC的衡量標準，富國表現(xiàn)好于窮國。新加坡?lián)魯∠愀蹔Z得首位，但恐怕也無法自滿。美國列第四，在去年它在所有的衡量標準上都沒有進行改革。它的免稅代碼就好像由后結(jié)構(gòu)主義的論文翻譯而成的外星文一樣難懂。美國一些州仍堅持對花匠、室內(nèi)設計師和理發(fā)師進行許可，這些規(guī)定怕是需要裁減了。