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  3. Imagine a Briton’s new year resolutions: he vows to stop smoking 20 cigarettes a day, and abandon his daily bottle of claret and

Imagine a Briton’s new year resolutions: he vows to stop smoking 20 cigarettes a day, and abandon his daily bottle of claret and

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问题     Imagine a Briton’s new year resolutions: he vows to stop smoking 20 cigarettes a day, and abandon his daily bottle of claret and nightly whisky. Confronting his enlarging gut, he may even promise to make his ten-mile round-trip commute by bike, not car.
    What admirable goals. And since this gentleman’s annual vice bill comes to around 7,500 pounds, he will be well-rewarded for his virtue even before considering the effect on his health. But the Treasury might rejoice a little less. In the fiscal year 2010-11 nearly 10% of all taxes collected came from duty on alcohol, tobacco, and fuel as well as from vehicle excise duty, a tax that falls most heavily on the least efficient cars. You may say that New Year resolutions are notoriously short-lived, but the longer-run trend still looks bad for the exchequer. Because many vices are in constant decline, so are receipts, predicts the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
    Smoking rates have been falling for decades, attributed partly to high taxes, and partly to public health campaigns changing social mores and a smoking ban in workplaces introduced across Britain in 2007. The government could respond by increasing sin tax rates. But when duties rise, so do the incentives to get around them, by buying abroad or on the black market. This is particularly common with cigarettes, which are easy for individual smokers to import. In 2000 non-duty consumption reached a peak of 78% , a consequence of the weak euro as well as a sudden increase in taxes of inflation plus 5%.
    Petrol taxes are leaking more quickly. As with smoking, behavior is changing; car and van mileage has fallen for four consecutive years, partly because petrol is so expensive and new vehicles have better engines. These trends, as well as the rise of electric and hybrid cars, are forecast to compress receipts from 1.8% of GDP in 2010 to just 1.1% in 2030.
    There are, of course, advantages to Britons giving up their filthy habits. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable illness and premature death in Britain. It cost the National Health Service more than 5 billion pounds a year in 2005-06, some 5.5% of its budget at the time, according to an Oxford University study. But any benefit to the NHS may be short-lived. Those who do not perish from diseases associated with smoking are likely to die more slowly of age-related illnesses.
    In moral terms, a decline in sin tax receipts suggests a job well done. But in fiscal terms, a hole is a hole. As the OBR sees it, falling Treasury income means Britons will be getting, in effect, an unannounced tax cut. Other taxes could therefore rise without leaving people worse off in aggregate. The maths makes sense. For the virtuous, though, being clobbered with new taxes may seem a rather poor reward.
The lost revenue from sin taxes may be balanced by______.
选项 A、raising sin tax rates
B、the money saved from curbing disease linked to smoking or drinking
C、imposing new taxes or increasing rates of other taxes
D、collecting more personal income tax
答案C
解析 本题是一道综合细节事实题，要做对有一定的难度。作者在文章最后一段提到“a hole is a hole”的意思是说：政府在恶行税收方损失不小，一定会想其他办法来弥补这一漏洞。那政府弥补的方式是什么呢?是不是可以像[A]选项所说的通过提高恶行税率来弥补呢?文章第三段中就明确指出这种做法是行不通的，因为这会促使人们通过非法渠道获得烟酒，丝毫无助于税收的增加。[B]选项也是错误的，文章倒数第二段中，作者提到恶习的减少会降低政府在治疗由不良生活习惯引起的疾病方面的支出，但是长期来看，医疗费用也不会有所减少，因为戒掉了烟酒的人最终也会因为其他慢性或急性病而死亡，而政府也需要在这些疾病上支付医疗费。[C]选项是正确答案，文章最后一段倒数第三句话明确指出，“Other taxes could therefore rise without leaving people worse off in aggregate．”弥补政府财政损失的方法就是增加其他税收的收入，那么政府要么需要增加新的税种，要么要提高现有税种的税率。[D]选项中的个人所得税，原文中完全没有涉及。
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