Alibaba is taking on Amazon’s habitual role as public enemy number one for traditional US retailers, after being dragged into a political fight over a tax exemption for online sales.
在卷入一场有关电商免税的政治争斗之后，阿里巴巴(Alibaba)接手了通常由亚马逊(Amazon)扮演的角色，成为美国传统零售商的头号公敌。
Bricks-and-mortar retailers – which have spent years attacking Amazon for profiting from what they call a sales tax loophole – have turned their fire on Alibaba by launching a new advertisement warning that the Chinese ecommerce group will be the next beneficiary.
实体店零售商多年来一直攻击亚马逊获利于它们所称的销售税漏洞。现在它们将炮火对准了阿里巴巴，并发布新的广告警告称，这家中国电商集团将是下一个受益者。

A campaign group whose members include Target, Best Buy, Home Depot and JC Penney have aimed their ad at US lawmakers, claiming that Alibaba will “decimate” local retailers unless a new law can be passed to prevent online shoppers avoiding sales tax.
成员包括塔吉特(Target)、百思买(Best Buy)、家得宝(Home Depot)和JC Penney的一个游说团体面向美国立法者投放广告，称阿里巴巴将“大批杀伤”当地零售商——除非通过新的法律，阻止网购者免交销售税。
The ad suggests that the US retailers are ready to play hardball and threatens to suck Alibaba into a political conflict before it launches an English-language version of its most popular site, Taobao.
该广告表明，美国零售商准备采取强硬态度，可能在阿里巴巴开通其最热门网站淘宝(Taobao)的英文版之前将其拖入一场政治冲突。
“We believe it’s just a matter of time before Alibaba exploits this loophole,” said Joshua Baca, of the Alliance for Main Street Fairness, the retail coalition behind the ad, whose members also include thousands of smaller stores.
投放这则广告的商业街公平联盟(Alliance for Main Street Fairness)的乔舒亚•巴卡(Joshua Baca)表示：“我们相信，阿里巴巴迟早会利用销售税的漏洞。”这个零售业联盟的成员还包括数千家规模较小的商店。
Yesterday, Alibaba rejected the group’s allegations. “This advertisement is not fact-based,” it said. “The Alibaba Group pays its taxes according to the laws in the country [in which] it does business and the US is no exception. The Alibaba Group remains focused on providing US-based companies the opportunity to bring their products and services to the Chinese market through our various online properties.”
昨日，阿里巴巴否认了这个团体的指控。它表示：“这则广告毫无事实根据。阿里巴巴集团会在业务所在国照章纳税，美国也不例外。阿里巴巴集团依然致力于为美国企业提供中国市场的机遇，通过我们不同的网上平台，让他们把商品与服务介绍到中国市场。”
Amazon has escaped being a lightning rod for such attacks by supporting legislation to close the perceived tax loophole – even though other retailers say privately that Amazon’s backing seems little more than lip service.
亚马逊支持立法堵住实体零售商眼中的销售税漏洞，因而没有成为首当其冲的攻击对象。尽管有些零售商私下表示，亚马逊的所谓支持似乎只是说说而已。
Ebay opposes the legislation, which it says would harm small businesses selling on its site by pushing up prices. But US retailers appear to have decided that it would be more effective to take aim at a Chinese target, rather than launch attacks on the Silicon Valley-based ecommerce site.
Ebay反对立法，认为这会伤害到在其网站上销售的小商家，迫使他们提高价格。但美国零售商似乎认为，将目标对准一家中国企业、而不是总部位于硅谷的电商网站，或许会更为有效。
Alibaba, which raised $25bn in the world’s largest ever flotation earlier this year in New York, has made a string of investments in US technology companies. In June, it launched 11 Main, a US business-to-consumer marketplace similar to its China-based Tmall, which offers online storefronts to merchants.
今年早些时候，阿里巴巴在纽约上市筹得250亿美元资金，为全球规模最大的IPO。阿里巴巴还对美国科技公司进行了一系列投资。今年6月，阿里巴巴推出了11 Main，这是一个立足美国的企业对个人(B2C)市场平台，类似于其在中国为商家提供网店平台的天猫(Tmall)。
Jack Ma, Alibaba’s founder, said last month that it would set up an international version of Taobao, its consumer-to-consumer marketplace.
阿里巴巴创始人马云(Jack Ma)上月表示，该公司将创建一个国际版淘宝——淘宝是阿里巴巴提供的消费者对消费者(C2C)平台。