国际货币基金组织（IMF）本月单独表扬了英国，称其拥有七国集团（G7）中最激进的赤字削减计划。更大胆的是，英国决定完全通过增税来实现这一紧缩目标，经济学家警告称，财政大臣约翰·希利（John Healey）正在挑战可能的极限。
Britain was singled out for praise by the International Monetary Fund this month for the boldest deficit-reduction plan of any Group of Seven nation. Bolder still is its decision to deliver the whole squeeze with higher taxes, with economists warning that Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
决心基金会（Resolution Foundation）在对周三预算案的分析中指出，在本届议会的五年任期内，政府计划减少借款760亿英镑（约合1020亿美元）。所有这些削减乃至更多，总计1070亿英镑，都将通过增税来实现。
Over the five years of the current parliamentary term, the government plans to reduce borrowing by £76 billion ($102 billion). All of that and more, £107 billion in total, will be done through tax hikes, the Resolution Foundation said in its analysis of Wednesday’s budget.
2010年，时任保守党财政大臣乔治·奥斯本（George Osborne）在金融危机后为修复公共财政，将其紧缩计划按80:20的比例分配给支出削减和增税。他的工党前任阿利斯泰尔·达林（Alistair Darling）曾计划按66:34的比例分配。
In 2010, the then Conservative chancellor, George Osborne, split his austerity program 80:20 between spending and tax as he sought to repair the public finances in the wake of the financial crisis. His Labour predecessor, Alistair Darling, had planned for a 66:34 division.
希利正朝相反方向推进，此时税收负担已处于二战以来的最高水平，而生活水平正面临新的冲击——这次是由伊朗战争引发的能源冲击。
Healey is pushing the other way at a time when the tax burden is at its highest since World War II and living standards are under renewed assault, this time from the energy shock caused by the Iran war.
牛津经济研究院（Oxford Economics）首席经济学家亚当·斯莱特（Adam Slater）本月的分析发现，虽然所有财政整顿计划的失败率都很高，“但证据表明，如果财政调整主要依靠削减开支而非增税，成功的可能性更大。”该预算案从2028年起每年增税约60亿英镑，同时每年平均增加30亿英镑的部门日常预算。周四，希利表示，在2029年下届大选之前，没有计划削减英国每年数千亿英镑的福利开支。
Analysis this month by Adam Slater, lead economist at Oxford Economics, found that while all consolidation programs have a high failure rate, “the evidence suggests that fiscal adjustments are more likely to succeed if they rely mainly on spending cuts rather than tax rises.”The budget both raised taxes by roughly £6 billion a year from 2028 and topped up departmental day-to-day budgets by an average of £3 billion a year. On Thursday, Healey said there are no plans to bring down the hundreds of billions that Britain spends on welfare each year before the next general election, due in 2029.
他选择的增税手段表明，他的选项正在耗尽。由于工党竞选宣言承诺不提高四大主要税率，他的手脚被束缚，大量工作只能通过行政调整来完成，包括直接从债务人银行账户扣款的权力。
His choice of tax levers suggested he is running out options. With his hands tied by Labour’s manifesto pledge not to raise any of the four main tax rates, much of the work was done through administrative tweaks, including powers to deduct funds directly from debtors’ bank accounts.
对储户、房东和银行征收的额外税收仅筹集了 20 亿英镑，而增加的银行附加税在 15 个月后被撤销。预算责任办公室判定，希利的五项措施存在“高度不确定性”。
Additional taxes on savers, landlords and banks raised only £2 billion, and the increased bank surcharge is withdrawn after 15 months. Five of Healey’s measures have a “high degree of uncertainty,” the Office for Budget Responsibility judged.
国际货币基金组织财政事务部主任罗德里戈·瓦尔德斯本月初表示，英国增税幅度过大，几乎没有什么税种能在不产生副作用的情况下继续增收。“要增加税收并不容易，”他说，“归根结底，这会造成扭曲。”
Rodrigo Valdes, director of the IMF’s fiscal affairs department, said earlier this month that the UK has raised taxes so much there is little left that does not have side effects. “More revenues is not easy,” he said. “It distorts at the end of the day.”
“从家庭和企业身上能榨取多少是有限度的，超过这个限度就会抑制经济增长，”凯投宏观首席英国经济学家保罗·戴尔斯说。“我们可能已经触及了这个限度。”预算责任办公室预测，税收收入占 GDP 的比重去年攀升至 36%，并有望在 2031-32 年达到 38.6%。从 1997 年工党上一次执政到 2020 年疫情前夕，这一负担的平均水平为 32.7%。
“There is a limit to how much you can squeeze out of households and businesses before crimping economic growth,” said Paul Dales, chief UK economist at Capital Economics. “We may have reached that limit.”Tax receipts climbed to 36% of GDP last year and are on course for 38.6% of GDP in 2031-32, the OBR predicts. Between 1997 when Labour last took power and the eve of the pandemic in 2020, the burden averaged 32.7%.
增收的主要部分来自冻结税收起征点，随着薪资上涨，这拖累了数百万人缴纳更多税款。一名全职工作者按国家最低工资标准年收入 2.5275 万英镑，如今已处于缴纳 40% 高税率门槛的中间位置。
The bulk of the increase is coming through frozen tax thresholds, which have dragged millions of people into paying more tax as their pay rises. A full-time worker on the national minimum wage earning £25,275 is now halfway to paying higher 40% rate of tax.
决议基金会首席执行官露丝·柯蒂斯表示，自 2020 年以来，前保守党政府和现工党政府的增税举措，在一定程度上解释了本十年来生活水平的崩塌。预计本十年实际家庭可支配收入仅增长 1.4%，仅为 2010 年代增长幅度的十分之一，而 2010 年代本身就是至少自 1960 年代以来最差的十年。
Tax hikes since 2020 by both the former Conservative government and the current Labour one partly explain the collapse in living standards this decade, Resolution chief executive, Ruth Curtice, said. Real household disposable incomes are forecast to rise just 1.4% this decade, just a tenth of the growth in the 2010s which itself was the worst decade since at least the 1960s.
“2020年代有望成为有记录以来收入增长最低的十年，”Resolution基金会的预算后报告称，“原因是税收上涨和进口价格上涨。”向富人征税不再是容易的选择，彭博社上月的分析显示，英国最高收入者缴纳的个人所得税占总额的比例在不到二十年内翻了一番——影响达1000亿英镑。这还叠加了针对富人的其他打击措施，涵盖从私立学校学费、昂贵房产到英国长期存在的非本地居民税制等各个方面。
“The 2020s are on course to have the lowest growth in incomes of any decade on record,” Resolution’s post-budget report said, “because of rising taxes and import prices.”Taxing the rich is no longer an easy option, with Bloomberg analysis last month showing that the share of total income tax paid by the highest earners in the UK has doubled in less than two decades — a hit of £100 billion. That comes on top of other raids targetting the wealthy on everything from private school fees and expensive houses to Britain’s long-standing non-domiciled regime.
2024年财政研究所的研究显示，收入纳税人中前1%群体缴纳的税收占比从2010-11纳税年度的25%上升至2023-24纳税年度的28.5%，而单身全职中位数收入者且无子女者缴纳的所得税和工资税占其收入的比例，降至近50年来最低水平。
Work by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in 2024 showed that the share of tax paid by the top 1% of income taxpayers rose from 25% in 2010–11 to 28.5% in 2023–24, while income and payroll taxes took a smaller fraction of the earnings of a single full-time median earner with no children than at any time for almost 50 years.