和谐英语

经济学人下载:英国税收 去往何处(2)

2017-10-09来源:Economist

Departments can make efficiency improvements up to a point, but eventually ever-smaller budgets make it difficult to provide core services.
部门可以将效率提高到一个点,但最终规模较小的预算难以提供核心服务。

From prisons to the National Health Service, measures of performance started to go south from around 2014, according to a recent report from the Institute for Government, a think-tank.
根据政府智囊机构最近的一份报告,从监狱到国家卫生服务机构,绩效指标从2014年左右开始上升。

The rate of child poverty, which fell during the 2000s, is now rising sharply, in part because of big cuts in working-age benefits.
儿童贫困率在2000年期间下降,现在急剧上升,部分原因是由于工作年龄福利大幅削减。

Since the election in 2015 the government has subtly adopted a new approach to austerity: less emphasis on spending cuts, more on tax rises.
自2015大选以来,政府巧妙地采用了一种新的紧缩政策:少关注削减开支,多关注增加税收。

In the average budget or autumn statement since then, the government has called for tax rises four times as big as the average in the parliament of 2010-15.
在平均预算或秋季声明之后,政府已呼吁比议会在2010-2015年的平均税收增加四倍。

Granted, the personal allowance for income tax has risen.
的确,个人所得税免税额已上升。

The headline rate of corporation tax has been cut.
公司税的总税率已被削减。

Yet increases in less-noticed charges such as environmental taxes, stamp duty (a levy on property transactions) and insurance-premium tax (levied on everything from holiday to vehicle insurance) have more than compensated.
然而,增加较少关注的费用,如环境税,印花税(物业交易税)和保险费税(征收的一切从假日到车辆保险)已超过所给的补偿了。

Mr Hammond is fast gaining a reputation as a tax-grabber.
哈蒙德很快赢得作为一个“税收-攫取者者”的名声。

In his first budget in March the chancellor pencilled in a reduction in the tax-free allowance for dividend income from 5,000 pounds to 2,000 pounds.
财政大臣预计在三月第一个预算中为股息收入从5000英镑到2000英镑减少免税额。

He also proposed an increase in the national-insurance contributions paid by the self-employed—though this was hastily, and embarrassingly, withdrawn after an outcry from newspapers and Tory backbenchers.
他还提出增加在个体国民保险税,虽然这很匆忙,也令人尴尬,但在报社和保守党后座议员的强烈抗议后就撤回了。

In all, following recent revisions to official economic forecasts, it is now expected that in 2018-19 the tax burden, expressed as a percentage of GDP, will be at its highest level since the mid-1980s.
总之,随着最近对官方经济预测的修订,现在预计在2018年-2019年度税负,用GDP的百分比表示,将达到自上世纪80年代中期以来的最高水平。

Mrs May's “instinct” may well be to lower taxes, but she cannot help being bound by Britain's unforgiving fiscal arithmetic.
梅的“本能”可能是降低税收,但她不得不被英国无情的财政预算约束。