Back to the Mainly The Georgians calendar
During this time there was a battle between the King and two leading members of his government, Charles Fox and Prime Minister Lord North. In 1783 the King dismissed them and asked a young 24 year old, newly-elected MP, William Pitt, to form a government.
Pitt would be the youngest ever PM. Pitt, known as Pitt the Younger as his father, guess what, also called William, had been a politician earlier, served as Prime Minister for the next 18 years, the longest anyone has ever held that position. Having been defeated in 1801, he returned in 1804 for two more years before he died in 1806, aged 46.
Pitt had to deal with a country that had spent a fortune fighting in the United States War of Independence and was now needing to begin the fight against Napoleon.
On 9 January 1799 he introduced Income Tax. Income Tax was the first tax in British history to be based directly on people's earnings.
It was introduced as a temporary measure to cover the cost of those Napoleonic Wars. Believe or not, and as it's true I would stick with the believe idea, it remains a
temporary tax, which expires on April 5 each year, and has to be renewed as part of the annual Finance Bill. In 1803 the amount charged was reduced from the
original rate of 10 per cent on incomes in excess of £60 per annum, but the amount you could earn before needing to pay was reduced meaning the number of
people who had to pay almost doubled. Income Tax was formally repealed in 1816, a year after the Battle of Waterloo, but it was reintroduced in 1842 by Sir Robert Peel to deal with a massive government debt.
Pitt also clamped down on smuggling and fraud and simplified the tax people paid for bringing goods into the country. He did a few other things which you will read about very soon but not here.
Forward to 1788AD
