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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.
An ordinary Britain’s New Year resolution is mentioned in Paragraph 1 to______.
选项 A、indicate the significant role played by tax in changing the lifestyle
B、illustrate that the decline of tax revenue is only short-lived
C、stress the benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle
D、demonstrate how a healthy lifestyle may affect the fiscal revenue
答案D
解析 本题考查对文章一、二段内容的理解。作者之所以在开篇就提到一个普通英国人的新年愿望，是为了引出财政税收这个话题。因为现在针对烟草，酒精以及汽车所征收的税收占到了财政总税收的10％左右，因此，如果英国人决定减少抽烟、喝酒等坏习惯，会给英国税收带来重创。因此本题的正确答案应该选[D].
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