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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 543: INCOME TAX SANCTIONED, ETC.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

INCOME TAX SANCTIONED, ETC.

During this session the primary objects of parliamentary Consideration were, financial propositions, with measures for internal defence, for invigorating the European confederacy now forming, and for effecting a permanent union between Great Britain and Ireland. The estimated supplies for the ensuing year were put at £29,272,000; and Pitt proposed a new plan for raising a considerable part of them—by an income tax. A series of resolutions to this new and bold plan were passed in the house of commons before the close of the year; and the bill finally passed into a law on the 18th of March ensuing, the 5th of April being the day fixed upon for making the returns of personal property. Pitt’s resolutions in substance were, that the augmentation of the assessed taxes made in the last session should be repealed, and have its place supplied by a duty upon all incomes above sixty pounds a year. If a man’s income exceeded two hundred pounds a year, he was to pay ten per cent, upon it; if it exceeded one hundred pounds, he was to pay considerably less upon it; and if between sixty pounds and one hundred pounds, he was to be taxed in a diminished proportion. This bill, after undergoing some amendments of detail, passed; and Pitt anticipated a revenue from it of £10,000,000, the yearly income of the whole nation being about £102,000,000. Early in the session 120,000 men were voted for the navy, and an increase of the yeomanry and militia was sanctioned.