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Text 3 In June, California department of forestry and fire protection determined that 12 devasta...

Text 3
In June, California department of forestry and fire protection determined that 12 devastating fires that struck Northern California tate last year were the result of trees coming into contact with power lines or other problems tied to the electric utility PG & E. Thanks to a policy known as inverse conclemnation, the utility could be on the hook for those damages, even if ii is not found to be negligeni.
In the past, PG&-E has paid the bills when it was blamed for fires and other damages. But the company now says it cannot keep footing the bill so long as climate change continues to increase the likelihood of fires. Millions of trees have died across California after years of intense drought. creating vast quantities of fuel that allow fires to burn faster and over greater clistances-all combined with higher temperatures. It has pushed to raise electricity rates to pay for tlie clamage.
Meanwhile. state officials are pushing a change in the law. Governor Jerry Brown proposed a new plan ihat would allow a court to decide whether the utility acted "reasonably" before forcing the company to pay claims. "Costly wildfires and natural disasters have the poiential to undermine the sysiem*" Brown told legislators. "leaving our energy sector in a state of weakness at a time when it shoulcl be making even greater investments in safety. "
Within the U. S. , the debate over liability for climate change has taken several forms. On the fecleral level, proactive policymakers have pushed to rework the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) , which pays people to rebuild their homes after floods-even in areas where damage is likely to strike again. In effect, that program, which is more than $ 20 billion in clebt, put.s the burden of climate-change-related natural disasters in the hands of the U. S. government ancl the taxpayer. Infrastructure experts have also pushed the government to rethink its post disaster funding to require climate change preparedness measures.
A group of pioneering American cities have sought to have the oil-and-gas industry pay for climate-change-relatecl clamages and disaster-prevention measures. A series of lawsuits have blamed the companies for years of polluting the planet while concealing evidence that emissions would contribute to devastaiing climate change. The authorities behind the lawsuits hope that courts will force the industry to pay up.
Thus far, U. S. courts have expressed skepticism-not necessarily of the fault of oil and gas but of the ability of the judicial system to address the issue. "The problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case," wrote William Alsup of the U. S. District Court in Northern California.
Elsewhere, a large number of litigants have also looked to the courts. Lacking other avenues for addressing the issue, people feeling the impacts of climate change are increasingly Lurning to courts to help find a global answer to a global problem.
32. In Jerry Brown's opinion, the right thing to do now is to
  • A. force PG&E to pay for fire damages.
  • B. determine whether PG&E acted properly.
  • C. limit the cost of natural disasters.
  • D. increase investment in the energy sector.
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Text 1
The European Commission's proposed tax on digital services is intended to make companies such as Google and Uber pay more. The idea is that such firms are gaming the rules at the expense of other taxpayers. The issue is real and needs to be addressed - but the answer under discussion breaks with both established international practice and plain common sense.
Formal talks on the plan are due to start this week. The commission is calling for a 3 percent tax on the turnover of large digital enterprises - those with EU digital revenues over 50 million euros and total global revenues of over 750 million euros. About half the companies affected would be American, the EU estimates.
The commission says it has been left with little choice. The value generated by digital companies doesn't require a physical presence, making them harder to rax. Digital businesses arrange their affairs to exploit this: They allocate income to low-tax jurisdictions and, according to officials, end up paying an effective tax of roughly 10 percent of profits, less than half of the burden carried by traditional businesses.
Officials acknowledge that the right solution is a thorough overhaul of the corporate tax code, especially as it affects international firms selling digital services - and that this should be done not unilaterally but in cooperation with other countries, notably the U. S. Efforts are in fact underway, but progress has been slow, and EU officials have chosen to do something, anything, as soon as possible.
Doing nothing would be better than this. For a start, the plan wouldn't raise much revenue - a meager 5 billion euros each year. And this supposedly fairer tax would bring abnormal results. For instance, companies such as Uber that don't make money will have a new cost to absorb; highly profitable firms with market power, such as Facebook, will be able to pass the tax on to their consumers. Small startups will be exempt from the new tax - unless they're acquired by larger companies. That will discourage consolidations. And the proposal as it stands may tax more activities than intended: Some financial services, for example, seem to be within its scope In its zeal to tax digital enterprises, the commission departs from many of its own stated principles. Its plan would probably require accessing individual, not just anonymized, user data. This runs counter to the EU's strict new rules on privacy, coming into force next month.
Efforts to design a multinational solution need to be stepped up, not set aside. The goal should be a fair, multilateral framework that recognizes the complexity of the new digital economy while respecting the sovereignty of nations to set their own tax policy. That's an international challenge demanding an international solution.
21. According to the first two paragraphs, the EU digital tax proposal
  • A. protects European industries from competition.
  • B. aims to updaic esiablished international practice.
  • C. is a blow to top digital companies.
  • D. binds only America's tech giants.
2 单选题 0分
Text 1
The European Commission's proposed tax on digital services is intended to make companies such as Google and Uber pay more. The idea is that such firms are gaming the rules at the expense of other taxpayers. The issue is real and needs to be addressed - but the answer under discussion breaks with both established international practice and plain common sense.
Formal talks on the plan are due to start this week. The commission is calling for a 3 percent tax on the turnover of large digital enterprises - those with EU digital revenues over 50 million euros and total global revenues of over 750 million euros. About half the companies affected would be American, the EU estimates.
The commission says it has been left with little choice. The value generated by digital companies doesn't require a physical presence, making them harder to rax. Digital businesses arrange their affairs to exploit this: They allocate income to low-tax jurisdictions and, according to officials, end up paying an effective tax of roughly 10 percent of profits, less than half of the burden carried by traditional businesses.
Officials acknowledge that the right solution is a thorough overhaul of the corporate tax code, especially as it affects international firms selling digital services - and that this should be done not unilaterally but in cooperation with other countries, notably the U. S. Efforts are in fact underway, but progress has been slow, and EU officials have chosen to do something, anything, as soon as possible.
Doing nothing would be better than this. For a start, the plan wouldn't raise much revenue - a meager 5 billion euros each year. And this supposedly fairer tax would bring abnormal results. For instance, companies such as Uber that don't make money will have a new cost to absorb; highly profitable firms with market power, such as Facebook, will be able to pass the tax on to their consumers. Small startups will be exempt from the new tax - unless they're acquired by larger companies. That will discourage consolidations. And the proposal as it stands may tax more activities than intended: Some financial services, for example, seem to be within its scope In its zeal to tax digital enterprises, the commission departs from many of its own stated principles. Its plan would probably require accessing individual, not just anonymized, user data. This runs counter to the EU's strict new rules on privacy, coming into force next month.
Efforts to design a multinational solution need to be stepped up, not set aside. The goal should be a fair, multilateral framework that recognizes the complexity of the new digital economy while respecting the sovereignty of nations to set their own tax policy. That's an international challenge demanding an international solution.
22. To which of the following would EU officials most probably agree?
  • A. Traditional business lax cut is necessary in the digital era.
  • B. The pace of global corporate tax reform is too slow.
  • C. Europe should reduce the number of Iow-tax jurisdictions.
  • D. Corporate tax code is being revised in favor of the U, S.
3 单选题 0分
Text 1
The European Commission's proposed tax on digital services is intended to make companies such as Google and Uber pay more. The idea is that such firms are gaming the rules at the expense of other taxpayers. The issue is real and needs to be addressed - but the answer under discussion breaks with both established international practice and plain common sense.
Formal talks on the plan are due to start this week. The commission is calling for a 3 percent tax on the turnover of large digital enterprises - those with EU digital revenues over 50 million euros and total global revenues of over 750 million euros. About half the companies affected would be American, the EU estimates.
The commission says it has been left with little choice. The value generated by digital companies doesn't require a physical presence, making them harder to rax. Digital businesses arrange their affairs to exploit this: They allocate income to low-tax jurisdictions and, according to officials, end up paying an effective tax of roughly 10 percent of profits, less than half of the burden carried by traditional businesses.
Officials acknowledge that the right solution is a thorough overhaul of the corporate tax code, especially as it affects international firms selling digital services - and that this should be done not unilaterally but in cooperation with other countries, notably the U. S. Efforts are in fact underway, but progress has been slow, and EU officials have chosen to do something, anything, as soon as possible.
Doing nothing would be better than this. For a start, the plan wouldn't raise much revenue - a meager 5 billion euros each year. And this supposedly fairer tax would bring abnormal results. For instance, companies such as Uber that don't make money will have a new cost to absorb; highly profitable firms with market power, such as Facebook, will be able to pass the tax on to their consumers. Small startups will be exempt from the new tax - unless they're acquired by larger companies. That will discourage consolidations. And the proposal as it stands may tax more activities than intended: Some financial services, for example, seem to be within its scope In its zeal to tax digital enterprises, the commission departs from many of its own stated principles. Its plan would probably require accessing individual, not just anonymized, user data. This runs counter to the EU's strict new rules on privacy, coming into force next month.
Efforts to design a multinational solution need to be stepped up, not set aside. The goal should be a fair, multilateral framework that recognizes the complexity of the new digital economy while respecting the sovereignty of nations to set their own tax policy. That's an international challenge demanding an international solution.
23. The author believes ihat the commission's tax plan would
  • A. ultimately harm consumers
  • B. benefit some financial services
  • C. help curb monopoly power
  • D. force privacy rules to be modified.
4 单选题 0分
Text 1
The European Commission's proposed tax on digital services is intended to make companies such as Google and Uber pay more. The idea is that such firms are gaming the rules at the expense of other taxpayers. The issue is real and needs to be addressed - but the answer under discussion breaks with both established international practice and plain common sense.
Formal talks on the plan are due to start this week. The commission is calling for a 3 percent tax on the turnover of large digital enterprises - those with EU digital revenues over 50 million euros and total global revenues of over 750 million euros. About half the companies affected would be American, the EU estimates.
The commission says it has been left with little choice. The value generated by digital companies doesn't require a physical presence, making them harder to rax. Digital businesses arrange their affairs to exploit this: They allocate income to low-tax jurisdictions and, according to officials, end up paying an effective tax of roughly 10 percent of profits, less than half of the burden carried by traditional businesses.
Officials acknowledge that the right solution is a thorough overhaul of the corporate tax code, especially as it affects international firms selling digital services - and that this should be done not unilaterally but in cooperation with other countries, notably the U. S. Efforts are in fact underway, but progress has been slow, and EU officials have chosen to do something, anything, as soon as possible.
Doing nothing would be better than this. For a start, the plan wouldn't raise much revenue - a meager 5 billion euros each year. And this supposedly fairer tax would bring abnormal results. For instance, companies such as Uber that don't make money will have a new cost to absorb; highly profitable firms with market power, such as Facebook, will be able to pass the tax on to their consumers. Small startups will be exempt from the new tax - unless they're acquired by larger companies. That will discourage consolidations. And the proposal as it stands may tax more activities than intended: Some financial services, for example, seem to be within its scope In its zeal to tax digital enterprises, the commission departs from many of its own stated principles. Its plan would probably require accessing individual, not just anonymized, user data. This runs counter to the EU's strict new rules on privacy, coming into force next month.
Efforts to design a multinational solution need to be stepped up, not set aside. The goal should be a fair, multilateral framework that recognizes the complexity of the new digital economy while respecting the sovereignty of nations to set their own tax policy. That's an international challenge demanding an international solution.
24. What is the ultimate goal that digital tax legislation should pursue?
  • A. Efficient unilateral solution.s.
  • B. Simplified corporate tax systems
  • C. A global cooperative approach
  • D. An anti-tax avoidance package
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