ВАРИАНТ 4
I. Прочитайте текст, письменно переведите на родной язык 2,3, 4 и 5 абзацы текста. Выпишите из текста и переведите на родной язык предложения, содержащие конструкцию «сложное подлежащее».
Taxes and Public Spending
In most economies government revenues come mainly from direct taxes on personal incomes and company profits as well as indirect taxes levied on purchase of goods and services such as value added tax (VAT) and sales tax. Since state provision of retirement pensions is included in government expenditure, pension contributions to state-run social security funds are included in revenue, too. Some small component of government spending is financed through government borrowing. Government spending comprises spending on goods and services and transfer payments.
Governments mostly pay for public goods, that is, those goods that, even if they are consumed by one person, can still be consumed by other people. Clean air, national defence, health service are examples of public goods. Governments also provide such services as police, fire-fighting and the administration of justice.
A transfer is a payment, usually by the government, for which no corresponding service is provided in return. Examples are social security, retirement pensions, unemployment benefits and, in some countries, food stamps.
In most countries there are campaigns for cutting government spending. The reason for it is that high levels of government spending are believed to exhaust resources that can be used productively in the private sector. Lower incentives to work are also believed to result from social security payments and unemployment benefits.
Whereas spending on goods and services directly exhausts resources that can be used elsewhere, transfer payments do not reduce society’s resources. They transfer purchasing power from one group of consumers, those paying taxes, to another group of consumers, those receiving transfer payments and subsidies.
Another reason for reducing government spending is to make room for tax cuts. Government intervention manifests itself in tax policy which is different in different countries. In the United Kingdom the government takes nearly 40 percent of national income in taxes. Some governments take a larger share, others a smaller share.
The most widely used progressive tax structure is the one in which the average tax rate rises with a person’s income level. As a result of progressive tax and transfer system most is taken from the rich and most is given to the poor.
Rising tax rates initially increase tax revenue but eventually result in such large falls in the equilibrium quantity of the taxed commodity or activity that revenue starts to fall again. High tax rates are said to reduce the incentive to work. If half of all we earn goes to the government, we may prefer to work fewer hours a week and spend more time in the garden or watching television.
Cuts in tax rates will usually reduce the deadweight tax burden and reduce the amount of taxes raised but might increase eventual revenue. If governments wish to reduce the deadweight tax burden and balance spending and revenue, they are supposed to reduce government spending in order to cut taxes.
II. Ответьте письменно на вопросы к тексту.
1. How is government spending financed?
2. What do governments pay for?
3. What are the three reasons for cutting government spending?
4. Which share of national income comes from taxes?
5. What are the characteristics of the progressive tax structure?
6. What may be the result of very high tax rates?
III. Составьте предложения из двух подходящих по смыслу частей.
1. Government spending is ….. .
2. Spending and taxing, ….. .
3. Whereas a sales tax is raised only when a final good is sold to the consumer,. .
4. The governments in northern Europe often give out freely a great share of gross output privately produced as public goods, ….. .
5. What is not paid as corporate taxes or saved by firms ….. .
6. Social security payments and unemployment benefits are ….. .
7. Every firm in Russia is required to allocate two percent of the amount to be paid out as wage ….. .
8. A state retirement pension in most European countries is ….. .
___________________________
a) goes to households as employees, owners, or renters.
b) payable to women at the age of 60 and men at the age of 65.
c) the VAT is raised at different stages of the production process.
d) the sum of government purchases of goods and services and transfer payments.
e) as its contribution to the Fund of Obligatory Medical Insurance.
f) those comprise medical services, school, child care, public transport, national defence.
g) to reduce incentives to work since they contribute to income.
h) the government plays an essential role in allocating resources in the economy.
IV. Переведите на родной язык следующие предложения.
1. Taxes of the firm to central government (corporation tax) plus taxes to local government (tax on the property the firm owned) were expected to come to £25,000 that year.
2. Part of the income of households is taxed by the government, which reduces the income share to beto consumption expenditure.
3. Less efficient resource allocation is believed to result from raising the additional taxation revenue necessary to fund government programmes.
4. Aggressive US subsidization of production and exports of farm products was followed by that of other exporting countries, mainly the European Community and Canada, which resulted in competitive subsidization and price discrimination.
5. Levying taxes or borrowing, governments pay for the goods they buy and for the transfer payments they make.
6. In a mixed economy, the government is known to control a considerable share of output through taxation, transfer payments, and such services as defence and the police force.
7. Unemployment benefit systems are said to vary considerably from country to country.
8. The purpose of that book is to show that there are limitations in the economy that no person and no policy can overcome.
9. Both those who provide capital for a new business and those who run the business are known to bear the risk whereas workers of such businesses are not expected to bear any risk.
10. Social security programmes may comprise retirement pensions, invalidity benefits, child benefits paid for every child in a family, housing benefits for low income households, etc.
V. Переведите предложения на английский язык.
1. Доля налогов в цене товара не может зависеть от покупательной способности населения.
2. Считается, что дополнительный доход от государства является отрицательным стимулом для поисков работы с более высокой заработной платой.
3. Незначительная доля государственных расходов Японии обусловливается, как известно, чрезвычайно низким уровнем расходов на национальную оборону.
4. Общественные расходы – это, как известно, те расходы, которые финансируются из налогообложения и государственных заимствований.
5. Большой государственный сектор, как полагают, делает экономику неэффективной, снижая количество товаров и услуг, которое может быть произведено и в конечном итоге распределено потребителям.
6. В Великобритании взносы в фонды социального страхования составляют почти треть от общей суммы, которая направляется на социальные расходы.
VI. Выберите подходящее по смыслу слово из предлагаемых в скобках вариантов.
1. Public spending has to be financed (nearly/mostly) through taxation and government (borrowing/share).
2. Over the last 100 year real wages have increased between five and fifteen times, (whereas/still) working time has been cut by nearly half.
3. Because unemployment often results in personal trauma, (unemployment benefits/retirement pensions) are said to be needed for psychological reasons.
4. Natural resources research in the USA in the 1930s was (nearly/initially) based on collecting information from various sources.
5. Due to a more (productive/required) capital and more know-how, wages in West Germany in the early 1980s were about three times as mush as (those/that) in the East. (Whereas/As a result), many East Germans moved to the West.
6. Productive processes are (mostly/still) prohibited because they are dangerous to workers or to the environment.
7. Long-term unemployed workers, who gradually lose their human capital and contact with the active labour force, (mainly/eventually) become unable to fill any vacancy.
8. The (social security funds/reasons) for which people may leave labour force are as follows: retirement, illness, return to school, child care, work in a home garden, etc.
(Initially/eventually) minimum wages were introduced (productively/mainly) to protect young people from exploitation.