In the UK, the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivers an annual Budget speech on Budget Day, outlining changes in spending, as well as tax and duty. The changes to tax and duty are passed as law, and each year form the respective Finance Act. For example, changes to the law as a result of Gordon Brown's 2004 Budget form the Finance Act 2004.
The rules governing the various taxation methods are contained within the relevant taxation acts. (For instance Capital Gains Tax Legislation is contained within Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992. The Finance Act details amendments to be made to each one of these Acts. The main taxes are Excise Duties; Value Added Tax; Income Tax; Corporation Tax; and Capital Gains Tax.
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Excise duties are inland duties levied on articles at the time of their manufacture.
An Act to grant certain duties, to alter other duties, and to amend the law relating to the National Debt and the Public Revenue, and to make further provision in connection with finance.
Most Gracious Sovereign
WE Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects the Commons of the United Kingdom in Parliament assembled, towards raising the necessary supplies to defray Your Majesty's public expenses and making an addition to the public revenue have freely and voluntarily resolved to give and grant unto Your Majesty the several duties hereinafter mentioned and do therefore most humbly beseech Your Majesty that it may be it enacted and be it enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same as follows.
The Finance Act 1910 led to the "Lloyd George Domesday land-survey", and the 1910-1915 Valuation Maps. Each property ('hereditament') in England and Wales was surveyed and valued, so a land value tax could be levied when the property was sold. The proposed rate was 20% of the increase in land-value between the date of the "Domesday" survey and the date of sale. Exemptions included farm-land and plots smaller than 50 acres (200,000 m2). The tax was repealed in 1920.
As part of the survey, landowners had to fill in a form, and the resulting records are extremely useful for local history. The records today consist of
The valuation maps and books are kept in local record offices, and the other items are in the National Archives at Kew (field books in series IR58; working maps in series IR121 to IR135 according to region: each region has up to 22 different districts).
To included a new 'Duty on licences for mechanically propelled vehicles' (which went into the Road Fund), Repealed 'customs duties on motor spirit and motor spirit dealers licence duties' and introduced 'Provisions as to spirits used for generating mechanical power' along with other provisions related to income tax and tax on alcohol.[1]
The 1946 Act, passed by the post World War II Labour Government, made several provisions including the establishment of the National Land Fund.[2]
The Finance Act 1977 abolished tithes.[3]
The Finance Act 2000 introduced the Climate Change Levy.