Britain Invents Income Tax: Pitt Needs War Money
He'd need more than math to beat Napoleon. Pitt's radical new tax—2 shillings per £100 of income—would shake British finance forever. And the math was brutal: most Brits made less than £60 a year, meaning even small earners got hit. But war was expensive. Napoleon wasn't going to defeat himself, and Britain needed cash fast. This temporary wartime measure? It would become permanent, transforming how governments think about funding.
January 9, 1799
227 years ago
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