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Departments can make efficiency improvements up to a point, but eventually ever-smaller budgets make it difficult to provide core services.
部門可以將效率提高到一個點，但最終規模較小的預算難以提供核心服務。
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.
根據政府智囊機構最近的一份報告，從監獄到國家衛生服務機構，績效指標從2014年左右開始上升。
The rate of child poverty, which fell during the 2000s, is now rising sharply, in part because of big cuts in working-age benefits.
兒童貧困率在2000年期間下降，現在急劇上升，部分原因是由于工作年齡福利大幅削減。
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大選以來，政府巧妙地采用了一種新的緊縮政策：少關注削減開支，多關注增加稅收。
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.
在平均預算或秋季聲明之后，政府已呼吁比議會在2010-2015年的平均稅收增加四倍。
Granted, the personal allowance for income tax has risen.
的確，個人所得稅免稅額已上升。
The headline rate of corporation tax has been cut.
公司稅的總稅率已被削減。
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，增加較少關注的費用，如環境稅，印花稅（物業交易稅）和保險費稅（征收的一切從假日到車輛保險）已超過所給的補償了。
Mr Hammond is fast gaining a reputation as a tax-grabber.
哈蒙德很快贏得作為一個“稅收-攫取者者”的名聲。
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.
財政大臣預計在三月第一個預算中為股息收入從5000英鎊到2000英鎊減少免稅額。
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increase in the national-insurance contributions paid by the self-employed—though this was hastily, and embarrassingly, withdrawn after an outcry from newspapers and Tory backbenchers.
他還提出增加在個體國民保險稅，雖然這很匆忙，也令人尷尬，但在報社和保守黨后座議員的強烈抗議后就撤回了。
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.
總之，隨著最近對官方經濟預測的修訂，現在預計在2018年-2019年度稅負，用GDP的百分比表示，將達到自上世紀80年代中期以來的最高水平。
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”可能是降低稅收，但她不得不被英國無情的財政預算約束。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
