Topic summary
Excise tax
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Excise.
United Kingdom
Excise tax is an indirect tax created in the United Kingdom during the First English Revolution, also known as "stamp duty", which has been applied to a wide range of products, particularly imports. Historically, it was collected by the Board of Excise, which was subsequently combined with the Inland Revenue (responsible for collecting direct taxes). In view of the higher likelihood of organised crime being involved in attempts at evading Excise, and its association with smuggling, compared with evasion attempts concerning direct taxation, the Board of Excise was later combined instead with the Board of Customs, to form HM Customs and Excise. In this combined form, Customs and Excise was responsible for managing the import and export of goods and services into the UK, and its officers wielded greater powers of access, arrest, and seizure, than the Police.