The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of

direct tax Although the actual definitions vary between jurisdictions, in general, a direct tax or income tax is a tax imposed upon a person or property as distinct from a tax imposed upon a transaction, which is described as an indirect tax. There is a di ...

ation, including

income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

national insurance contributions National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their famil ...

capital gains tax A capital gains tax (CGT) is the tax on profits realized on the sale of a non-inventory asset. The most common capital gains are realized from the sale of stocks, bonds, precious metals, real estate, and property. Not all countries impose a c ...

, inheritance tax,

corporation tax A corporate tax, also called corporation tax or company tax, is a direct tax imposed on the income or capital of corporations or analogous legal entities. Many countries impose such taxes at the national level, and a similar tax may be imposed a ...

, 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 Child benefit or children's allowance is a social security payment which is distributed to the parents or guardians of children, teenagers and in some cases, young adult (psychology), young adults. A number of countries operate different versions o ...

. The Inland Revenue was merged with

HM Customs and Excise HM Customs and Excise (properly known as Her Majesty's Customs and Excise at the time of its dissolution) was a department of the British Government formed in 1909 by the merger of HM Customs and HM Excise; its primary responsibility was t ...

to form

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which came into existence on 18 April 2005. The former Inland Revenue thus became part of HM Revenue and Customs. The current name was promoted by the use of the expression "from Revenue and Customs" in a series of annual radio, and to a lesser extent, television public information broadcasts in the 2000s and 2010s.

History

The Board of Taxes

The beginnings of the Inland Revenue date from 1665, when a Board of Taxes was set up following the introduction of special taxes to pay for the

Second Anglo-Dutch War The Second Anglo-Dutch War or the Second Dutch War (4 March 1665 – 31 July 1667; nl, Tweede Engelse Oorlog "Second English War") was a conflict between England and the Dutch Republic partly for control over the seas and trade routes, whe ...

. A central organisation to supervise the collection of the special taxes was required; it became known as the Tax Office. Taxes administered by the Board of Taxes included the Land Tax, first levied in 1692, along with the

window tax 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 p ...

and

house tax A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condit ...

, both of which dated from 1696. In 1785 a number of other miscellaneous taxes, administered by the Stamp Office and the Excise Office, were transferred to the Tax Office; these included taxes on carriages (dating from 1747), on wagons and carts, on male servants (1777) and on horses (1784). Together with the House Tax and the Window Tax, they came to be known as the ' assessed taxes' and were intended as a progressive form of taxation on the wealthy. Income tax was introduced in various forms in 1797, 1799, 1803 to 1816, and then reintroduced in 1842 as an annual tax which is formally renewed in each year's

Finance Act A Finance Act is the headline fiscal (budgetary) legislation enacted by the UK Parliament, containing multiple provisions as to taxes, duties, exemptions and reliefs at least once per year, and in particular setting out the principal tax rates f ...

The Board of Stamps

A separate Board of Stamps was created by the Stamps Act 1694. During the 18th and early 19th centuries at various times (as financial strains on the economy demanded, and Parliament allowed) stamp duties were extended above a certain threshold of sale value to cover newspapers, pamphlets, lottery tickets,

apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

s' indentures, advertisements, playing cards, dice, hats, gloves,

patent medicine A patent medicine, sometimes called a proprietary medicine, is an over-the-counter (nonprescription) medicine or medicinal preparation that is typically protected and advertised by a trademark and trade name (and sometimes a patent) and claimed ...

s, perfumes, insurance policies, gold and silver

plate Plate may refer to: Cooking * Plate (dishware), a broad, mainly flat vessel commonly used to serve food * Plates, tableware, dishes or dishware used for setting a table, serving food and dining * Plate, the content of such a plate (for example: ...

and armorial bearings (coats of arms). One further category is the most widely cited example of an unpopular and most difficult to enforce tax, the

Duty on Hair Powder Act 1795 The Duty on Hair Powder Act 1795 (35 Geo. III, c. 49) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which levied a tax on hair powder. The tax was used to finance government programs, especially to fund the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars with ...

. The last stamp taxes to remain are stamp duty land tax and

stamp duty reserve tax Stamp duty is a tax that is levied on single property purchases or documents (including, historically, the majority of legal documents such as cheques, receipts, military commissions, marriage licences and land transactions). A physical reven ...

; however the use of physical stamps has ceased.

The Board of Stamps and Taxes

In June 1833, following a steady reduction in the number of different taxes and duties being levied, a single body of Commissioners was set up to merge the revenues of stamps and taxes. The Board of Taxes and the Board of Stamps were formally combined under the Land Tax Act 1834 to form the Board of Stamps and Taxes.

The Board of Inland Revenue

The Board of Inland Revenue was created under the Inland Revenue Board Act 1849, after the Board of Excise and the Board of Stamps and Taxes were amalgamated. Responsibility for

excise duties file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when ...

was transferred to the Board of Customs and Excise in 1909. In 1995 to help promote self-assessment

tax returns A tax return is the completion of documentation that calculates an entity or individual's income earned and the amount of taxes to be paid to the government or government organizations or, potentially, back to the taxpayer. Taxation is one of ...

, Inland Revenue created the character of

Hector the Tax Inspector Hector the Inspector, also known as Hector the Taxman was the name given by a journalist to the unnamed animated advertising figurehead of the British Inland Revenue taxation department, used from 1995 to 2001 to remind people to return their self-a ...

to help in their advertising campaign.

HM Revenue and Customs

The 2004 Budget included proposals to merge HM Customs and Excise with the Board of Inland Revenue to form a new department,

HM Revenue and Customs , patch = , patchcaption = , logo = HM Revenue & Customs.svg , logocaption = , badge = , badgecaption = , flag = , flagcaption = , image_size = , co ...

(HMRC). The merger was implemented by the

Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 The Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 (c 11) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which combined the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise into a single government department, HM Revenue and Customs. The Act also e ...

with effect from 18 April 2005.

List of taxes

The following taxes were administered at various times either by the Inland Revenue or by its predecessors (

are not included): * Land Tax (1692-1963) * Stamp Duty (1694 onwards) *

House tax A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condit ...

(Inhabited House Duty from 1778) (1696-1924)Full text of the 1696 Act
/ref> *

Window tax 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 p ...

(1696-1851) * Legacy Duty (1780-1949) * Assessed taxes (1785): ** Male servants tax (1777-1852) (administered by the Excise Office until 1785) ** Coaches and carriages tax (1785-1798) (duty previously administered by the Excise Office, 1746-1782) ** Waggons, wains and carts tax (1785-1798) ** Game tax (1784-2007) (Stamp duty until 1808; converted to excise licence in 1860) ** Female servants tax (1785-1792) ** Horse tax (1784-1875) (converted to excise licence duty in 1869) ** Racehorse tax (1784-1874) (converted to excise duty in 1856) ** Shop tax (1785-1789) ** Hair Powder tax (1795-1869) (classed as licence duty until 1802) (there was also a Stamp Duty levied on hair powder from 1786-1800) ** Dog tax (1796-1988) (converted to excise licence duty in 1867) ** Clocks and watches tax (1797-1798) ** Armorial Bearings tax (1798-1944) (converted to excise licence duty in 1869) *

Income Tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

(1799-1802, 1803-1816, 1842 onwards) *

Succession Duty An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. International tax law distinguishes between an e ...

(1853-1949) * Corporation Duty (1885-1959) *

Estate Duty An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. International tax law distinguishes between an es ...

(1894-1974) * Super Tax (1909-1973) * Excess Profits Duty (1915-1921) * Profits Tax (1937-1966) * Excess Profits Tax (1939-1946) *

Capital Gains Tax A capital gains tax (CGT) is the tax on profits realized on the sale of a non-inventory asset. The most common capital gains are realized from the sale of stocks, bonds, precious metals, real estate, and property. Not all countries impose a c ...

(1965 onwards) *

Corporation tax A corporate tax, also called corporation tax or company tax, is a direct tax imposed on the income or capital of corporations or analogous legal entities. Many countries impose such taxes at the national level, and a similar tax may be imposed a ...

(1966 onwards) * Capital Transfer Tax (later called Inheritance Tax) (1974 onwards) * Petroleum Revenue Tax (1975 onwards) The Inland Revenue also received

National Insurance National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their fami ...

contributions and administered

payments and

Tax Credits A tax credit is a tax incentive which allows certain taxpayers to subtract the amount of the credit they have accrued from the total they owe the state. It may also be a credit granted in recognition of taxes already paid or a form of state "disc ...

Notable staff

Ministerial leadership

The leadership and taking of the highest level of decisions is ministerial as the concept of any particular tax and the degree of success in collecting any particular tax rests ultimately with the political decisions taken. Of particular relevance are the debates in

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

in their imposition.

Civil servants

The Permanent Secretary to the Treasury has the main advisory, policy informative role to play in the enabling of the department's functions, in liaison with Board Chairman who bore overall responsibility along with the rest of the Board for the operational carrying out of the Inland Revenue's functions. As sub-departments (typically, Offices, Boards and Bureaus) have issued their own taxes or expanded their remit, they too have seen Comptrollers General and Chairmen. An example was Robert Wilkie Stanton, Comptroller of Stamps and Taxes (Scotland), Board of Inland Revenue.

STEPS contract

In 2001 the Inland Revenue entered into a Private Finance Initiative contract whereby it sold two-thirds of its estate to

Mapeley Mapeley Limited is a Guernsey-based outsourcing and property investment business. It was previously listed on the London Stock Exchange and constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. History The company was founded in 1999. In 2001, it entered into an ...

for £370 million and then leased the properties back.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Records of the Boards of Stamps, Taxes, Excise, Stamps and Taxes, and Inland RevenueCatalogue of the Inland Revenue Departmental Whitley Council Staff/Trade Union Side archives
held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Defunct departments of the Government of the United Kingdom Economic history of the United Kingdom 2005 disestablishments in the United Kingdom HM Revenue and Customs Organisations based in the City of Westminster Taxation in the United Kingdom 1849 establishments in the United Kingdom Government agencies established in 1849 Government agencies disestablished in 2005