作者：金杜律师事务所 King & Wood Mallesons
The member states of the European Union have always kept close control over their own tax systems but even so, Europe has had a huge influence over the UK tax system ever since it started and that is going to raise the question of what would happen if the UK did leave the EU. Would we see huge tax changes in the UK?
欧盟成员国一直都严格控制本国的税收体系，但即便如此，欧盟对英国的税收体系从一开始就拥有巨大的影响力。由此带来的问题是，英国一旦真的退出欧盟，会发生什么。英国的税收会发生重大变化吗？
VAT is the obvious area where we would expect to see some changes and that is because VAT is an EU-led tax as it stands so it will have to change.
显然，增值税领域会发生一些变化，因为在实务中，增值税是欧盟主导的一个税种，所以一定会发生变化。
That being said, it has been a huge revenue raiser for the UK Government over the years so it is very unlikely that we would see it abolished completely. We would expect it to be replaced by something similar and possibly almost identical.
话虽如此，增值税是英国政府多年以来的巨大收入来源，因此，英国政府完全废除增值税几乎是不可能的。我们估计增值税会被某种类似税种取代，而且可能与增值税几乎相同。
Another area where we would expect to see some changes: at the moment there are several business-friendly EU directives, which are helpful, for example, for corporate groups. If we were to leave, they are likely to lose benefit of the parent subsidiary directive and the merger directives, all of which help them reduce their tax bills.
可能会发生变化的另一个领域是：目前存在几项有利于营商的欧盟指令，有利于企业集团等。我们一旦退出欧盟，这些企业集团可能会失去欧盟关于母子公司的指令及并购指令所带来的好处，无法由此享受减税。
The final area of change is probably a common theme, but UK tax law has been very influenced by EU laws restricting anti-competitive activities. If you look over the past 10 years, the UK Government has had to change several pieces of UK tax law because of European law challenges to its validity. It’s possible if we were to leave the EU, the government might relish the flexibility in some of those areas and look to make changes to the law. That said, in terms of the Brexit vote and what would happen immediately, UK law is still UK law and it will stand; nothing will automatically change on a Brexit vote but it’s possible that in the coming years we will gradually see incremental changes to the UK legislators’ attitude towards tax. Of course, they will still be subject to other international law constraints, with the OECD initiatives being influential in this area.
最后一个变化可能是共同面临的问题，但英国税法受欧盟限制反竞争行为的相关法律影响很大。回顾过去十年，英国政府不得不修改英国税法的多项规定，因为欧盟法律对其效力提出了异议。我们一旦退出欧盟，政府可能希望在这些领域增加一定的灵活性，并修订法律。尽管如此，针对英国退欧投票以及随后发生的变化，英国法仍是英国法，并且依然有效；英国退欧后，任何事情都不会自动发生变化，但是未来几年，我们会看到英国立法机构逐渐转变对税收的态度。当然，英国的税收仍将受其他国际法的约束，其中经合组织的倡议在这一领域具有相当大的影响力。