Taxes

You know the saying about death and taxes.... Taxes aren't mentioned much in historical romances, but they've been around for a long time, and I'm sure most Regency people felt as taxed to death as we do today. People of substance, that is.

Can you think of a historical romance that mentions taxes, or even better, uses them as a plot point? All those impoverished families might want to look closely at their taxable assets! The information below is from A Gentleman's Pocket Memorandum from 1819.

(Addition, I originally got my photocopy from Nancy, and she has put up a much fuller and clearer transcription here. It's a wonderful site full of information.)

I'm going to mostly write about the small taxes, but a word first about one we all know well.

Income Tax was introduced as a temporary measure (ha!) to help pay for the Napoleonic Wars. "It began at a levy of 2 old pence in the pound (1/120) on incomes over £60 (£5,077 as of 2013),[5] and increased up to a maximum of 2 shillings (10%) on incomes of over £200." (Wikipedia.)

(I think their estimate of modern values is off. It's very tricky because there are a lot of variables.)

You can read more about the progress of income tax here.  It was abolished in 1816 and didn't return until 1841, so the characters in the book I'm writing now, set in 1817, didn't have that burden to bear. But let's look at some others. One interesting thing is that they're all designed to tax wealth, so they were more socialist minded than we might think.

Window Tax.

This was introduced in the 17th century as a tax on wealth and had the advantage of not obliging people to disclose their income. It levied 2 shillings per house, and then the amount went up according to the number of windows, up to 8 shillings if the property had over twenty windows. I'm sure the owners of Chatsworth and Blenheim really felt the pinch!

Some people bricked up windows to reduce the tax.

On to the others.

Nibbled to death by taxes

(I'm going to give these in brief and I don't understand the full implications of some, so due warning. l=pound)

1. Armorial bearings -- if you have them and keep a coach, 2l 8s pa. If you have them and don't keep a coach but are liable to house duty 1l 4s. All others, 12s

2. Vehicles. If you keep a four-wheeled carriage for pleasure, 12l pa and it goes up, getting more expensive per carriage to 9 and upward at 163l 7s pa. And people complain about vehicle licencing today! Carriages drawn by one horse with less than 4 wheels, 6l 10s. There are taxes on carriages let for hire. Makers of carriages, 10s pa, plus 1l 5s for every 4 wheeled carriage made and 12s 6d for every two wheeled. There are taxes on selling them and doing nearly anything to them, I assume because vehicles were a sure sign of wealth.

3. Dogs. Greyhounds a pound per dog pa. More than one of any type of dog, 14s.

4. Hair powder.  If you wear it at all, you pay 1l 3s 6d. Exempt are the royal family and their servants; clergymen whose income is less than 100l; naval personnel below commander; subalterns or lower in the army etc etc. There's a very odd line at the end of this paragraph. "No person to pay for more than two unmarried daughters." Perhaps a typesetting error? Or if you're unfortunate enough to have many unmarried daughters they can powder at will?

5. Horses. Again, a sliding scale from 2l 17s 6d for one, reaching  6l 12 for twenty. That seems quite moderate, so perhaps having a horse was not seen as such a sign of wealth as having a carriage.

6. Houses -- 1l 6s up to 2l 10s

 7. Servants. Male servants, 2l 8s for one up to 7l 13s for eleven and up. Note, bachelors pay an additional 2l a year for every manservant. Disabled officers on half pay may keep one servant duty free. There's nothing about female servants, so I assume the penalty for male servants is because they were a status symbol, and also the legislators might feel men could be employed in more worthwhile jobs. Anyone giving a servant a false character could be fined 20l.

Are you surprised by these? It must have meant quite a bit of book keeping even in a moderate household. What would you tax today to particularly zap the wealthy over-consumers? Sports cars? Handbags that cost over 200 -- dollars, pounds or euroes? TVs bigger than....?

Cheers,

Jo

Comments

[Margot]

According to a book I read a while ago, increasingly in the eighteenth century, menservants were viewed as a luxury, and Lord North placed a tax of one guinea per manservant in 1777. In 1785, Pitt increased the tax to £1 5s 0d for a single manservant, with a sliding scale up to £3. He also placed a tax on maidservants at the same time, although it was much lower, at 2s 6d to 10s, again depending on the number. Bachelors paid double and families with children paid only part.

If I were to tax something, I'd say shoes. How can people bear to pay thousands of dollars for things they stand on? Actually, most clothing seems quite overpriced to me, but then I've never been big on fashion. So maybe it's worth it to those people, but go ahead and tax it.

[nancy]

I think the sentence about tax on unmarried daughters is just misplaced. One doesn't hear about that one very much.
I have a photocopy of the 1819 memorandum book with the tax digest in it-- along with other interesting stuff. Where did you find yours? The originial of my copy is incomplete. I understood the amorial bearings to be taxed if they were put onto the doors of carriages, writing paper, buttons of livery and the like. I'll have to look at my copy.
The Regency gentleman's memorandum book has loads of neat stuff. I think that the one for the ladies basically had fashions and poetry and other light material. I have only had a brief look at one so my memory might be faukty.
The window tax had some unintended but wretched results in that people would block windows inorder not to pay the tax and leave the house with out a means of light and fresh air except for opening the door. The people might as well have been living in a cave. Very bad for health.

[Nicola Cornick]

I love reading about historic taxes, Jo! Maybe I'm odd in that but I find it fascinating. Last night I was watching a TV programme about the 100 Years War and the Peasants' Revolt which reminded me just how unpopular a poll tax was in the UK back in the 14th century never mind the 20th!

I built the whole of my Brides of Fortune series around the idea that a set of local medieval taxes was still in force in what had been an ecclesiastical enclave. I researched it thoroughly but got a lot of stick because many people simply didn't believe it could be historically accurate. However one only needs to look at the arcane medieval laws still in force in some villages in England to know it's true!

[Jo Beverley]

Nancy, we're working from the same source, because you kindly gave me a photocopy of yours. Thanks again.

I've added to the blog above a link to your web site where you have a complete transcription of the section on taxes. Fabulous.

Jo

[Jo Beverley]

So true about arcane laws, Nicola. In the Regency there were still draconian ones about damaging trees or taking a stone from a bridge.

Jo

[Nicola Cornick]

Absolutely, Jo, which again inspires all sorts of story ideas!

[Lil]

Odd and arcane laws are always a fascinating subject, and they don't turn up only in the Regency period. In France, they recently removed from the books a law forbidding women to wear pants in Paris. One of my favorites was a New York State law mandating the death penalty for attempted suicide.

[Ella Quinn]

They facinate me as well. Thanks so much for the post. For a time, it was illegal in England for women to use cosmetics and hairpieces or dye their hair as it might tempt a men to marry where he normally wouldn't have.

[Liz]

Need to mention tea tax.

[Janice]

How were the taxes collected? I see where for some things (servant taxes, lodgers), the taxpayer was required to send in a list upon notice, but what about the others? Did they come as bills? Did someone have to go somewhere and pay them in person? Or did a collector come around? Or could they be mailed?

[LynS]

When did the death tax come in? I always hear about the aristocracy selling their art or books to pay the tax.
As for windows, New York City, fined tenement builders for not installing internal windows (between rooms) for light and ventilation for health reasons. Many landlords just closed their buildings rather than submit. Tenements were actually considered a step up in housing for the working poor.
http://tenement-museum.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-room-with-legally-mandated-view.html

[Jo Beverley]

Jo here. Lil, there are a lot of odd laws still on the books. Plenty of modern stories there!

Janice, that's an interesting question about tax collection! I suspect most of it was by people paying them to a local office of some sort, but I don't know. There have to have been people to go out and find tax avoiders.

I'll have to see if I can find out.

Jo

[Jo Beverley]

Lyn, apparently Death Duties were introduced in 1897, but the idea is old. In the middle ages an heir often had to pay his lord to take over the estate. The size of death duties has been hard on estates, however, because often there's little cash, so things have to be sold off.

Jo

[LouisaCornell]

I have a vague memory of my parents having to pay a tax or pay for a license for the television and radios we had in our house when we lived in England. I'm not certain, but I think that is what they said.

I love all of these archaic laws. So much potential for a good story!

If you can pay 1000 dollars for a purse, you have a serious case of TMM (too much money) and you probably need to be taxed! I am a shoeaholic, but I have never paid more than 200 dollars for a pair of shoes. And since I retired from singing I don't pay anywhere near that anymore!

Could we perhaps tax people who are celebrities only by virtue of their bad behavior with no discernible talent at all? They take up so much air time and so much space on the internet and in magazines. Surely they deserved to be taxed for overexposure? :)

[Jo Beverley]

There's still a TV license here, Louisa. It funds the BBC so I don't grudge it, especially as it means no ads on BBC TV and radio!

I love the idea of a tax on over-exposure. How do we do that?

Jo

[theo]

I wouldn't mind paying my fair share if the darned governments would find a way to work with what they collect rather than spending twice as much as their income then taxing me even more! And I think that's been going on since the beginning of tax collection time as well.

[Jo Banks]

A tax on over exposure and boring the public sounds just right not to mention a tax on those huge handbags some of them would probably swallow the vaste majority of my wardrobe!But in danger of being shouted at I must say that income tax is by far the fairest tax we have because lets face it if you haven't got it you dont pay it but if you have a car it doesnt matter what you circumstances you still pay tax twice on the fuel and then again on the vehicle!

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