《每日电讯报》：财政大臣应铭记丘吉尔关于税收的至理名言
2009-10 年政府支出为 6690 亿英镑，预计今年将达 6970 亿英镑。乔治·奥斯本的紧急预算案——本次支出审查旨在落实该预算——计划到 2015-16 年将支出“削减”至 7570 亿英镑。
Government spending in 2009-10 was £669bn and is expected to reach £697bn this year. George Osborne’s emergency Budget, which this spending review is intended to implement, aims to “cut” this to £757bn by 2015-16.
在我看来，这根本称不上削减。当然，有人辩称这是实际意义上的削减，因为支出计划增速低于通胀率，但这似乎不足以平息那些在过去 13 年里因公共部门扩张而获益者的抗议声浪。
This doesn’t sound like much of a cut to me. Of course, it is argued it is a cut in real terms, because spending is planned to rise more slowly than inflation, but it hardly seems to justify the protests emanating from those who have grown comfortable on the enlargement of the public sector over the past 13 years.
削减带来的感受可能比实际更糟，原因有几个。
The cuts may feel worse than they are because of a couple of factors.
一是医疗系统被排除在削减范围之外。在忽视如此庞大的一块公共支出时，不可能完成所需的削减额度。而且，削减医疗支出实际上可能改善服务，只要它去掉臃肿的“管理层”、监控、社区参与、半官方机构以及其他妨碍临床效率的乱七八糟的东西，正如美国评论员 P·J·奥罗克所言：“如果你觉得医疗现在很贵，等它免费了再看看价格。”
One is the exclusion of the health service from the cuts. It is impossible to make cuts of the amount required while ignoring such a large portion of public spending. Moreover, cuts in health spending may actually improve the service insofar as they remove bloated layers of “management”, monitoring, community engagement, quangos and other nonsense which hampers clinical efficiency, or as the US pundit PJ O’Rourke put it: “If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”
另一个是完全不理智地拒绝削减海外援助预算。我们可能面临风险——因过度大笑而伤害新加坡人——继续向他们提供援助，而他们的人均 GDP 比我们高出近 50%。
Then there is the utterly insane refusal to make any cuts in the overseas aid budget. We may be in danger of inflicting injury through excessive laughter on Singaporeans with the prospect of continuing to send them aid when their GDP per capita is nearly 50pc higher than ours.
这足以让人怀疑财政大臣是否查过字典里“全面”一词的定义。
It is enough to make you wonder whether the Chancellor has looked at the definition of the word “comprehensive” in a dictionary.
再加上不断攀升的国家债务利息成本，你就会明白为何削减带来的痛感比实际效果更重。但无论削减是否足够，甚至是否真实，税收确实在增加。资本利得税和所得税已经上调，增值税也将在新年提高。
Add to that the escalating cost of interest on our burgeoning national debt and you can see why the cuts may feel heavier than they are effective. But whether or not the cuts are sufficient or even real, we are certainly getting increased taxes. Capital Gains Tax (CGT) and income tax have already been increased and VAT will rise in the New Year.
请别把我接下来要说的话当作意在减少我个人税单的特别恳求。除了需要进行切实的支出削减以降低赤字、为公共服务和福利预算恢复些许效率和常识外，政府可能确实需要增加税收收入。问题在于，提高税率能否带来这一结果，远非显而易见。
Try not to regard what I am about to say as special pleading designed to reduce my personal tax bill. As well as a need to implement meaningful expenditure cuts in an effort to reduce the deficit and restore some semblance of efficiency and common sense to public services and welfare budgets, government probably needs to raise tax revenues. The problem is that it is by no means clear that this will result from raising tax rates.
拉弗曲线得名于阿瑟·拉弗的研究，在 1980 年代广为流行。它探讨税率与税收收入之间的关系。该理论假设存在一个使收入最大化的税率，超过这一税率，提高税率反而可能减少税收收入。拉弗曲线有一定常识基础。高税率落在富人和专业人士身上——没有多少穷人缴纳最高档所得税或资本利得税。提高税率可能导致税收收入下降，因为这些人面对更高税率时，可能选择不再额外工作，或不创办、不扩大商业活动。他们可以采取规避措施，包括推迟变现投资，甚至移居国外。
The Laffer Curve is named after the work of Arthur Laffer and was popularised in the 1980s. It is about the relationship between tax rates and tax revenues. It postulates that there is a revenue-maximising rate of taxation and increases beyond that rate may have the effect of decreasing tax revenues. The Laffer Curve has some foundations in common sense. It is the rich and professional classes on whom higher rates of tax fall – not many poor people pay the highest rates of income tax or CGT. Higher taxes may produce lower tax revenues because these individuals may choose not to do additional work or set up or expand their business activities when faced with a higher tax rate. They can take avoiding action, including postponing realisation of investments or even leave the country.
一些人已经在说，英国并未出现预测中的金融家外流，当时银行家奖金税以及所得税和资本利得税上调被提上议程。英国税务海关总署确实加大了对英国境内员工移居海外并逃避英国税的难度，只要他们与英国有任何家庭或商业联系。但长期影响可能更为微妙。
Some are already arguing that the UK has not seen the exodus of financiers which was predicted when the bankers’ bonus tax and the income tax and CGT increases were mooted. HMRC has certainly made it much harder for UK-based workers to relocate abroad and escape UK taxes if they have any family or business ties to the UK. But the longer-term effects may be more subtle.
上周，渣打银行首席执行官冼博德表示，由于税收和监管变化的影响，吸引高管搬到伦敦越来越难。
Last week Peter Sands, chief executive of Standard Chartered, said that it was proving harder to get executives to move to London because of the impact of tax and regulatory changes.
实践证据也支持拉弗曲线。在里根总统任期内——那时拉弗曲线被采纳——尽管美国最高边际税率从 70% 降至 28%，税收收入却增加了。英国在撒切尔夫人执政下也观察到类似效应。当然，你无法做受控实验来排除现实经济中的所有其他因素，但我要用温斯顿·丘吉尔的一句话留给你（和乔治·奥斯本）：“我认为，一个国家试图靠征税实现繁荣，就像一个人站在桶里、想抓住提手把自己提起来。”
There is also evidence to support the Laffer Curve in practice. During Reagan’s presidency, in which the Laffer Curve was embraced, tax revenues increased even though the top marginal rate of tax in the US was reduced from 70pc to 28pc. Similar effects were observed in the UK under Margaret Thatcher. Of course you cannot do a controlled experiment to eliminate all other factors in a real economy but I will leave you (and George Osborne) with a quote from Winston Churchill: “I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”
Terry Smith
Terry Smith
The Telegraph
The Telegraph