Last week marked back to school for many households and holiday memories were fading fast. But while pictures captured on smartphones will provide reminders of the summer, what will perhaps stick in the mind most for many who holidayed abroad is the expense, with the weakness of Sterling the fly in the sun lotion.
belfast telegraph
Could a beard tax help shave the deficit?
If Philip Hammond has learned from the history of taxation, we could see some interesting developments in the October 29th Budget.
When we look back at some of the taxes we’ve had in the past, it is clear that taxation has had to continually change to keep pace with the times. In 18th century Britain, a hat tax was introduced to raise revenue from the gentrified. It was effectively a stamp duty on the head-dress of the more wealthy – the bigger the hat, the bigger the tax. Top hats had a top rate of 14%.
Candles were also viewed as an extravagance in Georgian England and therefore drew the interest of the exchequer, leading to the introduction of a candle tax. Similar taxes to target the wealthy at the time included, a beard tax introduced by Henry VIII, or an 18th century window tax (the bigger the house, the more windows it would have and the more tax the owners would pay). Continue reading