Historical Overview Of The Introduction Of An Old Tax In The United Kingdom

This article presents the historical facts about an old taxation system on windows in the United Kingdom. The window tax was introduced into Great Britain in 1696 by King William the third. In those days, the idea of civil liberty was different to that which exists today. In the prevailing climate, people felt that telling the king about their income was an unacceptable intrusion into their private business.

Of his subjects, the King decided that the most fair method of taxation would be by looking at the size of people’s houses. Each person who owned a house would have to pay a fixed fee of 2 shillings. This is about 10 pence in the new system. As well as this, if the house was large and contained more than 10 windows, there were extra taxes to pay.

For a property which had between 10 and 20 windows the householder would pay an extra four shillings on top of the base line 2 shillings. For a property with over twenty windows, the window tax was 8 shillings extra. In later years, the minimum number of windows which would be taxed was reduced to 7. In 1825, a house with a minimum of 8 windows was to have an extra tax imposed.

Poor residents of course did not have to pay this extra window tax. If they were eligible to receive church charity, for example, then they would be exempt from paying.

However, in the 17th and 18th centuries, many larger houses could be seen with bricked up windows. This is an obvious attempt to avoid this window tax. In Scotland, after William Pitt the Younger introduced this tax in the 1780s, the windows were painted black with white frames. This was also done in order to avoid paying the tax. These popularly became known as Pitt’s pictures. Examples of these windows can still be seen in Charlotte Square in Edinburgh.

Many of the more wealthy families of the time were thought to show off their wealth by having houses of many windows built. They may even have had extra windows put in were walls existed to prove that they could afford to pay the tax.

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