HM Excise
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His or Her Majesty's Excise refers to 'inland'
In 1849 the Board of Excise was merged with the
Organisation
Following the example of HM Customs, the Board of Excise set up a network of administrative areas called 'Collections' (each with its own Collector). Unlike HM Customs, the Excise operated inland as well as on the coast: initially it had 39 Collections in England (mostly corresponding with the
Personnel
Each Excise Collector was required to tour his Collection eight times a year, visiting each Market Town in turn in order to hold 'sittings' and receive revenue payments. In the intervening time, locally based Excise Officers (known informally as excisemen or gaugers) would make regular visits to the manufacturers and retailers in order to assess the duty payable on relevant items and to issue 'vouchers' summarizing the duty owed.[3] Meanwhile, the Supervisors would make regular spot-checks on the excisemen in their Districts and report any anomalies or errors in their accounts.[2]
This pattern of work remained the norm through the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 1820s, an excise officer (Joseph Pacy) wrote a detailed description of his daily routine, spent visiting a series of different manufacturers and retailers: chandlers, brewers, innkeepers, tanners, maltsters, distillers and tea and tobacco merchants (with substantial amounts of administrative work to be done in the intervening moments).
Headquarters
Initially, in 1643, the Excise Office had a headquarters in
Excise licences
In order to be able to regulate and inspect the manufacture of dutiable products, the Excise Office issued licences to manufacturers (and it was then illegal for anyone to manufacture such items without a licence). Traders in some items were similarly licensed.[4] In the late 18th century a duty was imposed on the licenses themselves: Excise Licence duty (the rate of which often varied depending on the scale of production) had to be paid in addition to any duty payable on the goods that were being manufactured or traded under licence.[5]
History
17th century
On 22 July 1643, the Long Parliament passed the 'Excise Ordinance' (an Ordinance for the speedy raising and levying of moneys by way of charge or impost upon several commodities) to raise money for the maintenance of Parliamentary forces.[3] The ordinance established a board of eight Commissioners to oversee the collection of this revenue. Duty was initially levied on beer, cider, spirits and soap, but the list of dutiable items grew year by year and before long excise duty was being levied on such day-to-day necessities as meat, fish, clothes and leather, prompting public resentment. (In 1647 the Excise office in Smithfield was burned to the ground during a riot against the Excise duty on meat.)[2]
After the
From 1662 Excise revenue was
Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, with the English Army expanding and fighting multiple campaigns, levels of duty were increased and new duties were raised: beer duty was doubled and over the next twenty-five years such diverse commodities as salt, glass, malt, candles, hops, leather, windows, wire, soap, paper and starch all became subject to excise duty. The distribution of Excise officers around the country meant that they were sometimes called upon to act for other branches of government; for example in 1693 they were called upon to provide annual statistics on inns and taverns to the Secretary at War (for the billeting of soldiers and the stabling of horses).[3]
18th century
After the Act of Union 1707 a separate Excise Board was established for Scotland. When malt duty was imposed there in 1725 it caused widespread outcry and opposition.
The Excise was now seen as an efficient and effective means of raising revenue and
In the wake of the crisis no new excise duties were introduced for the next fifty years (except for a relatively short-lived duty on household plate). When, however, William Pitt the Younger arrived as Prime Minister, he brought with him a determination to raise revenue more effectively by way of the Excise service. A duty on bricks was introduced in 1784, as was the duty on excise licences.[5] Then, in 1786, Pitt revisited the proposals embodied in Walpole's withdrawn Excise Bill of 1733: the intention had been to reduce customs duty on imported wine and tobacco to a nominal amount and instead impose an Excise duty; on arrival, the goods would be placed directly in a bonded warehouse where they would remain under Excise control. Despite opposition from affected merchants and retailers, the Bill was passed. The gamble paid off and within a few years the duty on tobacco had established itself as Britain's most productive form of revenue (and it remained so until 1968). Thereafter, the developing war with France had prompted the introduction of new forms of duty and further increases.
In due course, the warehousing system proved advantageous to the traders since duty was only payable on the removal of goods from the warehouse. This enabled them to delay paying duty until the goods were sold (whereas previously Customs duty had to be paid the moment the goods arrived on dry land). In 1803 an Act was passed allowing the warehousing of all types of goods liable to Excise duty, and new warehouses were built in ports all round the country.
Smuggling remained a problem with which both Excise and Customs officers were now having to engage. As part of their response, both services were provided with
19th century
In 1823 the thitherto separate Boards of Commissioners for England, Scotland and Wales were consolidated into a single UK-wide Board of Excise.[11]
During and after the Napoleonic Wars, the number and level of excise duties had continued to grow. From the 1820s, however, this trend began to be reversed; by 1840 the number of duties levied had reduced from twenty-seven to ten.[b][2] Salt duty (levied since 1698) was repealed first, in 1825, followed by the long-standing excise duties on beer and cider (levied since 1643).[3] Also in 1825 the somewhat anomalous situation whereby import duties (on coffee, cocoa, tobacco, wine and spirits) were collected by the Excise Office came to an end, with responsibility for these being handed back to HM Customs. (The Excise fleet of revenue cruisers were transferred over at the same time.)[11]
In 1830, Sir Henry Parnell published an influential treatise On Financial Reform, which argued for the repeal of duties on the raw materials for building and manufacturing (including those on bricks, tiles, leather and hemp) in order to encourage manufacturing, the repeal of duties on items otherwise involved in manufacturing processes (including those on coal, glass, candles and soap) and the reduction of excise duty on wine and tobacco (in order to discourage smuggling); in order to counterbalance these proposed reductions Parnell argued for the (re-)introduction of taxes on property and on income (i.e. direct, rather than indirect, taxes).[12]
The following year the duties on leather and on printed cotton were repealed, followed by that on candles. (The abolition of the latter was widely welcomed: chandlers' equipment was required to be kept secure behind a crown lock outside working hours, the key to which was held by the local excise officer, who was obliged during working hours to monitor the chandlers' work every four hours.) Where excise duties remained in place (e.g. on spirits, malt, soap and paper) the requirement for officers to monitor the manufacturing process was reduced.[3]
Amalgamations
During the 1840s the Excise Office contracted as further duties were repealed (e.g. that on glass in 1845). Before long, plans were being drawn up to merge the much-reduced department with the Board of Stamps and Taxes (itself formed from a recent amalgamation). The merger was achieved after Parliament passed the Inland Revenue Board Act in January, 1849.
The reduction in excise duties continued post-amalgamation, with duties being repealed on bricks (1850), soap (1853) and paper (1861). In 1880 malt duty (which had been in place since 1697) followed suit; but it was replaced by a new excise duty on beer (which varied depending on the
In the early 20th century a decision was taken to unite the two Boards responsible for indirect taxation; the
List of excise duties (1643-1909)
The following duties were levied by the Excise Office and by the Excise Department of the Inland Revenue (this is not an exhaustive list):[3][14]
- Beer (1643-1830, 1880-)
- Cider (1643-1830, 1916-23, 1976-)
- Salt (1643-1660, 1694-1825);[c]
- Soap (1643-60, 1712-1853)
- Vinegar (1643-1844)
- Spirits (1660-)
- Tea (1660-1834)
- Glass (1695-1845)
- Made-wine[d] (1696-1834)
- Malt (1697-1880)
- Candles (1710-1832)
- Hops (1711-1862)
- Leather (1711-1831)
- Paper (1712-1861)
- Wire (1712-1826)
- Starch (1713-1834)
- Bricks (1750-1850)
- Tiles (1750-1839)
- Plate (1756-77)
- Cotton prints (1774-1831)
- Auctions (1777-1845)
- Wine (1786-1825)
- Licences (1784-) see below
- Railway passengers (1847-1929); had previously been subject to stamp duty (since 1832)
- Sugar (1837-74, 1915-62)
- Racehorses (1856-1874); previously an assessed tax (since 1784)
- Chicory (1860-1926)
- Saccharin (1901-62)
List of excise licence duties
From 1784 an excise duty was payable on licences taken out by manufacturers and traders of dutiable goods, including brewers, maltsters, distillers, glassmakers, paper manufacturers, soap-makers,
In addition, licence duty was payable by or for (among others):[3][13][18]
- Appraisers (1865-1949); previously subject to stamp duty (since 1806)
- Armorial bearings(1869-1945); previously an assessed tax (since 1798)
- Auctioneers (1777-1949)
- Carriages (1869-); previously an assessed tax (since 1747)
- Dogs (1867-1988); previously an assessed tax (since 1796)
- Guns (1870-)
- Game (1860-2007); previously an assessed tax (since 1784)
- Hackney carriages (1847-) [e]
- Hawkers (1864-1966)[f]
- House agents (1865-1949); previously subject to stamp duty (since 1861)
- Male servants (1869-1938); previously an assessed tax (since 1777)
- Sellers of Patent Medicine(1865-1941); previously subject to stamp duty
- Pawnbrokers (1864–1974); previously subject to stamp duty (since 1785)
- Plate-dealers (1865-1949); previously subject to stamp duty (since 1758)
- Playing card makers & sellers (1864-1960); playing cards had previously been subject to stamp duty (since 1711)
- Post horses (1837-1869); previously subject to stamp duty (since 1779)
- Saddle and carriage horses (1869-1875); previously an assessed tax (since 1784)
- Motor vehicles (1888-)
Notes
- ^ By the 1840s there were 55 Collections in England and Wales (excluding London) and 315 Districts.
- ^ Namely: auctions, bricks, glass, hops, licences, malt, paper, soap, spirits and vinegar.
- ^ Excise and customs duties on salt were administered by a separate Salt Office from 1702.[15]
- ^ Made-wine is, by the current HMRC definition, "any other drink [than wine] that has alcohol made by fermentation (apart from cider), not by distillation or any other process. For example, mead is a made-wine".[16] It was historically also known as 'sweet'.
- ^ Hackney carriages had first been licensed by the Commissioners for the Streets and Wayes (in 1664), then by the Hackney Coach Office (from 1694-1831) and then by the Stamp Office (from 1831).
- ^ Hawkers, pedlars and petty chapmen had first been licensed in 1697, the Hawkers and Pedlars Office being established the following year. Its work passed to the Hackney Carriage Office in 1810 and thence to the Stamp Office in 1832.[19]
References
- ^ "Records of the Boards of Customs, Excise, and Customs and Excise, and HM Revenue and Customs". National Archives. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g Knight, Charles, ed. (1843). London (volume V). London: Charles Knight & Co. pp. 97–112.
- ^ ISBN 0-245-53472-5.
- ^ Crombie, Sir James (1962). The New Whitehall Series, vol. 10: Her Majesty's Customs and Excise. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
- ^ a b "19th Report of the Commissioners of Enquiry into the Excise Establishment: Excise Licences". Sessional Papers of the House of Lords. XLII: 3–7. 1837.
- ^ Percival, G. (March 1901). "The Civil List and the Hereditary Revenues of the Crown" (PDF). The Fortnightly Review. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
- ^ "Records of the Boards of Customs, Excise, and Customs and Excise, and HM Revenue and Customs". The National Archives. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
- ^ Details
- ^ "History of Smuggling". Border Force National Museum. Liverpool Museums: Maritime Archives and Library. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
- ^ Lavery, Brian (1989). Nelson's Navy: the Ships, Men and Organisation, 1793-1815. London: Conway Maritime Press.
- ^ a b Carson, Edward (1972). The Ancient and Rightful Customs. London: Faber & Faber.
- ^ Dowell, Stephen (1888). History of Taxation and Taxes in England. London: Longman, Green & co.
- ^ a b Ham's Inland Revenue Yearbook 1885. London: Effingham Wilson. 1884. pp. 183–217.
- ^ Johnston, W. H. (1865). Loftus's Inland Revenue Officer's Manual: A Guide to the Duties and Qualifications of Persons Employed in the Excise Surveying Department. London: W. R. Loftus. pp. 16–40.
- ^ "Salt & the Salt Tax". Salt Association. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
- ^ "Wine Duty and licences for wine and made-wine producers". HM Revenue & Customs. UK Government. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
- ^ Bateman, Joseph (1840). The Excise Officer's Manual and Improved Practical Gauger. London: A. Maxwell. pp. 290–354.
- ^ "Records of the Boards of Customs, Excise, and Customs and Excise, and HM Revenue and Customs". The National Archives. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
- ^ "1697 An Act for licensing Hawkers & Pedlars". Pedlars.info. Retrieved 25 March 2023.