Despite the high cost of living, it remains popular..
Ahead of the Autumn Budget, here’s some of the UK’s more bizarre taxes that highlight the strange, and often counterproductive, history of taxation in the UK, with many leading to unintended consequences, or creative attempts at avoidance
1. Window Tax (1696-1851) – Tax on the number of windows in a house, leading to bricked-up windows. Led to decreased light and ventilation in homes, which was linked to increased spread of diseases like cholera, smallpox and typhus. May have contributed to the phrase ‘daylight robbery’
2. Beard Tax (1535) – Imposed by Henry VIII, with the amount based on the wearer’s social status. Influenced fashion, social behaviour and economic trends, and thousands of powder based hairdressers lost their jobs
3. Playing Cards Tax (1710-1960) – Led to widespread forgeries of playing cards to avoid the tax. John Blacklin famously attempted to avoid the tax by selling packs of 51 cards, and selling the ace of spades separately!
4. Wallpaper Tax (1712-1836) – Applied to patterned, painted or printed wallpaper. People found ways around the tax by purchasing untaxed plain paper and having it hand stencilled
5. Hat Tax (1784-1811) – Tax on hats and headgear, aimed at taxing the wealthy. Heavy fines were imposed on milliners or hat wearers who failed to pay the tax, with the death penalty for forgers of hat-tax revenue stamps!
6. Clock Tax (1797) – Applied to watches and clocks. Severely damaged the clockmaking industry, causing many clockmakers and suppliers to go out of business
7. Scutage or “Cowardice Tax” (c. 1100-1154) – Allowed knights to avoid military duty by paying a fee. Allegedly led to the creation of the Magna Carta, which limited the king’s power
8. Knowledge Tax (1815-1855) – Tax on newspapers, making them less accessible to the poor. Led to the creation of an underground, untaxed press, that produced cheaper illegal newspapers
9. Decimation Tax (1655) – 10% tax imposed by Oliver Cromwell on Royalists after the English Civil War. Perhaps the worst UK example of a punitive tax aimed specifically at political opponents
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