The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word corn in British English denoted all cereal grains, including wheat, oats and barley. They were designed to keep corn prices high to favour domestic producers, and represented British mercantilism. The Corn Laws blocked the import of cheap corn, initially by simply forbidding importation below a set price, and later by imposing steep import duties, making it too expensive to import it from abroad, even when food supplies were short. The House of Commons passed the corn law bill on 10 March 1815, the House of Lords on 20 March and the bill received royal assent on 23 March 1815.
The Stamp Act 1765, also known as the Duties in American Colonies Act 1765, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper from London which included an embossed revenue stamp. Printed materials included legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers, and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies, and it had to be paid in British currency, not in colonial paper money.
The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation tax, petroleum revenue tax and stamp duty. More recently, the Inland Revenue also administered the Tax Credits schemes, whereby monies, such as Working Tax Credit (WTC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC), are paid by the Government into a recipient's bank account or as part of their wages. The Inland Revenue was also responsible for the payment of child benefit.
Window tax was a property tax based on the number of windows in a house. It was a significant social, cultural, and architectural force in England, France, and Ireland during the 18th and 19th centuries. To avoid the tax, some houses from the period can be seen to have bricked-up window-spaces. In England and Wales it was introduced in 1696 and in Scotland from 1748. It was repealed in both cases in 1851. In France it was established in 1798 and was repealed in 1926.
Decimal Day in the United Kingdom and in Ireland was Monday 15 February 1971, the day on which each country decimalised its respective £sd currency of pounds, shillings, and pence.
Taxation in the United Kingdom may involve payments to at least three different levels of government: central government, devolved governments and local government. Central government revenues come primarily from income tax, National Insurance contributions, value added tax, corporation tax and fuel duty. Local government revenues come primarily from grants from central government funds, business rates in England, Council Tax and increasingly from fees and charges such as those for on-street parking. In the fiscal year 2014–15, total government revenue was forecast to be £648 billion, or 37.7 per cent of GDP, with net taxes and National Insurance contributions standing at £606 billion.
A stamp act is any legislation that requires a tax to be paid on the transfer of certain documents. Those who pay the tax receive an official stamp on their documents, making them legal documents. A variety of products have been covered by stamp acts including playing cards, dice, patent medicines, cheques, mortgages, contracts, marriage licenses and newspapers. The items may have to be physically stamped at approved government offices following payment of the duty, although methods involving annual payment of a fixed sum or purchase of adhesive stamps are more practical and common.
The pound was the currency of Australia from 1910 until 14 February 1966, when it was replaced by the Australian dollar. Like other £sd currencies, it was subdivided into 20 shillings, each of 12 pence.
The 1909/1910 People's Budget was a proposal of the Liberal government that introduced unprecedented taxes on the lands and incomes of Britain's wealthy to fund new social welfare programmes. It passed the House of Commons in 1909 but was blocked by the House of Lords for a year and became law in April 1910.
An Act of Parliament clock, also commonly known as a tavern clock, is a type of large clock originally hung in inns and taverns in the United Kingdom, beginning in the mid-18th century. Such clocks were plain in design, the faces were around two to five feet in diameter, and they were hung on the wall.
In English law, poundage was an ad valorem customs duty imposed on imports and exports at the rate of 1 shilling for every pound of goods imported or exported.
The pound was the currency of the Canadas until 1858. It was subdivided into 20 shillings (s), each of 12 pence (d). In Lower Canada, the sou was used, worth 1⁄2 penny. Although the £sd accounting system had its origins in sterling, the Canadian pound was never at par with sterling's pound.
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest on December 16, 1773 by the Sons of Liberty in Boston in colonial Massachusetts. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell tea from China in American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts. The Sons of Liberty strongly opposed the taxes in the Townshend Act as a violation of their rights. In response, the Sons of Liberty, some disguised as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company.
Wife selling in England was a way of ending an unsatisfactory marriage that probably began in the late 17th century, when divorce was a practical impossibility for all but the very wealthiest. After parading his wife with a halter around her neck, arm, or waist, a husband would publicly auction her to the highest bidder. Wife selling provides the backdrop for Thomas Hardy's 1886 novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, in which the central character sells his wife at the beginning of the story, an act that haunts him for the rest of his life, and ultimately destroys him.
The 1895 Wimbledon Championships took place on the outdoor grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom. The tournament ran from 8 July until 15 July. It was the 19th staging of the Wimbledon Championships, and the first Grand Slam tennis event of 1895. There were 18 competitors for the men's singles title, 9 for the ladies' singles and 7 pairs entered the gentleman's doubles. The meeting recorded its only loss, of 33 pounds. The tournament saw the Wimbledon Championship's first royal visitors when the Crown Princess of Austria, Princess Stéphanie of Belgium and Prince Edmund Batthyany-Strattmann watched the Gentleman's Doubles Challenge Rounds on 15 July.
The Duty on Hair Powder Act 1795 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which levied a tax on hair powder. The tax was used to finance government programmes, especially to fund the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars with France. The Act was repealed in 1861.
The brick tax was a property tax introduced in Great Britain in 1784, during the reign of King George III, to help pay for the wars in the American Colonies. Bricks were initially taxed at 2s 6d per thousand. The brick tax was eventually abolished in 1850.
The history of taxation in the United Kingdom includes the history of all collections by governments under law, in money or in kind, including collections by monarchs and lesser feudal lords, levied on persons or property subject to the government, with the primary purpose of raising revenue.
The history of inheritance taxes in the United Kingdom has undergone significant change and mutation since their original introduction in 1694.
The Land Tax was a land value tax levied in England from 1692 to 1963, though such taxes predate the best-known 1692 Act. Taxes on land date back to the Norman Conquest and beyond, and the Land Tax introduced in 1692 was a natural successor to taxation acts in 1671 and 1689, but the 1692 act "has been regarded as a turning point in the history of English revenue collection. It was from this Act that contemporaries and historians alike date what has come to be known as the eighteenth-century Land Tax". The land tax elements of the 1671, 1689 and 1692 Acts were limited to one year but the 1798 Act made the tax perpetual.
