A client has just sent me through an original 'Guide to the new system of dedcuting Income tax from wages call paye as you earn' from 1944. I am full of admiration for the level of detail and clarity achieved when we were actually still at war. Many of the concepts .. code numbers, tax tables, deduction cards, allowances were there from day one and the whole book reads similarly to a guide written yesterday.
There are, however, some lovely anachronisms!
Personal allowance is set at £80
Additional £50 if you employ a female relative to act as housekeeper
Additional £50 per child under 16 (See Gordon didn't invent tax credits!!)
Additonal £25 for 'Daughter's Services' if she lives with you and your wife is infirm
Dividends are taxed at 10s in the £ (is that 50%) ... ouch!
Special travel allowances of up to £10 where your place of work has been changed because of war work
Replies (8)
Please login or register to join the discussion.
That's interesting!
I wonder why 'daughter's services' were valued lower than a female relative, and yes, 10 shillings was 50% of £1.
Real Time Information
I still feel in the dark about exactly how many aspects of RTI will work in 6 months time. Although HMRC's website gives some guidance there are many things that are unclear. Clearly some of the communication skills of yesteryear have been lost.
Impressive that the old Inland Revenue could so radically change the tax system for a country that had been at war for 4 to 5 years and in a pre-decimalisation era without computers.
I'd call that amazing!
I still feel in the dark about exactly how many aspects of RTI will work in 6 months time. Although HMRC's website gives some guidance there are many things that are unclear. Clearly some of the communication skills of yesteryear have been lost.
Impressive that the old Inland Revenue could so radically change the tax system for a country that had been at war for 4 to 5 years and in a pre-decimalisation era without computers.
Amazing, given that all the men were away! :)
Brilliant
And somewhat worrying that this was so clear and concise back then but today we have such a mess, even with the use of computers!
Would also love to see a copy of this but appreciate it would be very time consuming to scan everything in!
:)
they would have only gone to men because women's income was taxed as their husband's income until 1990/1. Don't tell me you've all forgotten Wife's Earnings' Elections and the like.
There was still an additional personal allowance for men with wives who couldn;t work due to infirmity/illness etc until the whole lot went about 15 years ago was it?
When I worked in HMIT there were still a few files with "concards" that went right back to the start of PAYE. And some maintenance orders that were peculiar white on black copies.
that's made me remember the banding machine at school for making multiple copies of documents. Technology eh?