Taxes More Inevitable than Death

Welcome to Austen's Britain

Feb 26, 2022

This column is inspired by a significant other’s request to “do our taxes this weekend.”

I look forward to your comments on this or other topics.

&&&&

’Tis true that Mr. Franklin sardonically noted “…but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” And, of course, the American War (1775-83) was fought over the issue of “taxation without representation.” Yet, in the Great Britain of the Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815), representation in the Westminster Parliament did not relieve Britishers of (in many instances) a more than 20 percent tax burden. It is doubtful if any were happy to pay such rates.

However, nearly every Briton realized the existential threat posed by Napoleon. The Government imposed long and short-term tariffs on individuals and businesses to cover the millions of pounds needed to fund the military machine as well as subsidies to foreign countries: £560,000 in 1794 to Hanover (What was that? Oh yes:[i] The Hanoverian Dynasty!).

As Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer noted

[An Englishman] had to pay, besides tithes and church-rates, window tax for every window, taxes on his horses if above the size of ponies, taxes on his cart-wheels, taxes on his malt, taxes on silver plate, if he had any, taxes on hair powder, if he wore it, taxes on property if he inherited it, taxes on every bill he paid, for no receipt for any sum above £10 was legally valid unless it were written on stamped paper.[ii]

Of course, many in the Austenesque world focus on the more peculiar of these taxes…particularly the one on hair powder simply because the idea of powdered hair or wigs is now so quaint. Yet, a comfortable eighteenth gentleman could expect to pay at least an annual powder license of 1 guinea in 1795 and eventually over £1 3s per person by 1813. Is it any wonder that young men (particularly the Corinthians) and young women began to favor softer more natural hairstyles than those worn by their parents and grandparents?

Of course, Pitt’s hair powder tax only accelerated the trend away from hair powder which had begun with the snickering rumble of the guillotine in 1792.[iii]

The number of taxes levied was truly astonishing. Unlike the modern world where VATs, excise taxes, or sales taxes are generally applied across-the-board, different items enjoyed different assessments. Many of these taxes, since there was no income tax, were clearly geared to separate the well-to-do from their annual income. The larger your establishment, the more you had to fork over to the government. And, as a point of reference, the purchasing power of an 1811 pound is about $2,428 in 2022.[iv]

Consider a few of these duties.[v]

Servants: (for Men) £2 8s for one, £3 2@ for two up to £7 13s for eleven

Carriages for pleasure: £12 for one…up to £163 7s for nine or more

Coat of Arms on Equipage: £2 8s

Carriage Rental Firms: £12 per four-wheel coach

Recalling how Lady Catherine De Bourgh emphasized display of wealth, her massive household at Rosings could have set her back a pretty penny. And, assuming she only had three carriages (a large barouche, a smaller coach, and Anne’s phaeton), she would have to pay £42 in tax every year.

After 1792, the government discovered new ways to increase revenues by adding items for a single year to the list[vi]…

1793

Game Duty

1794

Foreign Brandy & Rum, slate/stone/marble, bricks & tiles, glass, paper (Rosing’s famous chimneypiece likely would have incurred some form of tax.)

1795

Imported wine, tea, coffee, cocoa, fruit, silk

But one need not be a military historian to comprehend how the war was progressing by 1797. Consider the list of items added to the taxed list:

1797

Tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar, bar iron, Scots Distilleries (an excise tax on Scotch, dear Lord!), brick, auctions, wills, deeds, advertisements, and on and on…29 items

Is it any wonder that smugglers shifted into high gear?

One important source of revenue was a tax, enacted in the late seventeenth century: the Duty on Lights and Windows (1695). This was popularly known as the Window Tax. The original purpose, interestingly enough, was to raise revenues without undue government invasion of privacy. Unlike an income tax that demanded a person to reveal their total income, a tax collector needed only to count the windows. And the tax was based upon a combination of the dwelling’s value and the number of windows/ventilation openings.

The impact of such a tax upon architectural design is only now being considered by historians and other social scientists.[vii] Windows and ventilation openings were reduced in tenements built to house industrial workers. This condemned the poorest to live in pestilential miasmas without any relief. On top of that, the landlords often passed on their tax burden. Existing multifamily buildings saw existing windows bricked over. Homes were constructed featuring bed chambers with no windows.

Yet, the tax also led to an exhibition of conspicuous consumption by British elites. Windows rose from floor to ceiling, as frequently imagined in Darcy’s library. Ostentatious treatments called attention to windows. Can we recall Mr. Collins’s poetic effusions about Rosings’s windowed front and how much it cost Sir Lewis? The greatest of houses added glassed-in porches to demonstrate wealth![viii]

Unquestionably the Georgian/Regency world carries a great romantic appeal. Yet, what we rarely appreciate is how the entire nation was living under as much of a threat, in fact, a more tangible one with France but 22 miles away, as the United States faced in the 1950s. However, the lives of the gentry and the ruder classes were profoundly affected by the taxation programs enacted by the Government to keep the revolutionary hordes of Republican France away from Dover.

Austenesque Thoughts

Discussion about this post