PAYE pamphlet from 1944

PAYE pamphlet from 1944

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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)

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By ShirleyM
04th Oct 2012 11:32

That's interesting!

I wonder why 'daughter's services' were valued lower than a female relative, and yes, 10 shillings was 50% of £1.

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By SThornton
04th Oct 2012 11:41

Any way you could share a copy of this with us please?

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By Steve Holloway
04th Oct 2012 12:43

Maybe daughters ....

were expected to do their duty regardless!! The language (from a social history point of view) if illuminating. The manual says near the start 'if your wife is working she will also be subject to PAYE' presumably on the basis that the manual was only to be distributed to men!

Re sharing .. it is a lot of pages to copy scan but I will see if i get time at some point.

 

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By Phil Rees
04th Oct 2012 16:23

Daughter's Services Allowance

persisted into the 1970s (at least).

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Locutus of Borg
By Locutus
04th Oct 2012 16:11

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.

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Replying to DJKL:
By George Attazder
04th Oct 2012 16:23

I'd call that amazing!

0103953 wrote:

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! :)

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By JCresswellTax
05th Oct 2012 09:02

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!

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By Chris Wise
05th Oct 2012 10:05

:)

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?

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