HM Revenue and Customs used to use the line “Tax doesn’t have to be taxing” in its adverts in the 2000s (you might remember them). But most would agree, that to one degree or another at least, it is taxing. On the brain, on the wallet, and, at times, on the spirit. In fact the person who spoke that famous phrase even went on record wishing that the chancellor would make the tax system simpler.
Forget 2p coins, we used to be able to pay our taxes in eels
So tax does have to be taxing, but it doesn’t have to be… boring? Just ask the medieval British who paid their taxes in eels. Yes, you read that right – eels. During the Middle Ages, landlords would collect rent in the form of eels because they were such a popular food. The city of Cambridge alone used to pay 45,000 eels a year to the King. It somewhat puts protest payments in 2p coins into context.
The beard tax of 1535
But it gets weirder. Tudor England had a tax on beards. Henry VIII decided that facial hair should come with a price tag, and the amount you paid depended on your social status. Elizabeth I later continued this bizarre tradition, making people pay for the privilege of growing a beard. The tax collectors would actually walk around touching people’s faces to check if they needed to pay up. Talk about hands-on government work.
The window tax of 1696
Windows caused quite a stir too. The Window Tax of 1696 made people pay based on how many windows their house had. What did everyone do? They bricked up their windows, of course! You can still spot these blocked-up windows in old buildings all over Britain today. The tax lasted until 1851, and we got the phrase “daylight robbery” from this peculiar tax.
The hat tax of 1785
Think that’s odd? In 1785, Britain started taxing hats. Every hat needed a stamp inside it to prove the tax had been paid. Hat sellers who didn’t comply faced the death penalty – a bit extreme for dodging hat tax, wouldn’t you say? The tax inspectors would raid shops looking for unstamped hats. This led to a booming trade in hat-shaped non-hats that people would claim weren’t technically hats at all.
TV licenses charged more for colour until 2020
Let’s jump to something more recent – Britain actually had a tax on TV colours until 2020. If you owned a colour TV, you paid more than someone with a black and white set. People still owned black and white TVs just to save on the license fee – in 2019, over 6,000 homes still had black and white licenses! They finally scrapped this colour premium, but the TV license itself lives on.
The playing card tax of 1711
Have you heard about the playing card tax? From 1711, every pack of cards needed a special stamp on the ace of spades to show the tax had been paid. This tax lasted over 200 years! The government kept such tight control that only one company could print the ace of spades. People started forging them, leading to a thriving underground card game scene.
The pasty tax
Modern Britain hasn’t lost its touch for weird taxes. Take the “pasty tax” controversy of 2012. The government tried to add VAT to hot takeaway food, but this created the bizarre situation where the temperature of your pasty determined how much tax you paid. If your pasty was hot, you paid more tax. If it had cooled down, you paid less. Bakers actually started letting pasties cool just to save their customers money.
VAT on food
Speaking of food, Britain taxes some really strange combinations. A gingerbread man with chocolate eyes? Standard VAT rate. But if it has chocolate buttons? Zero-rated! Frozen yogurt? Taxed. But frozen yogurt with raisins or nuts in it? No tax! These distinctions keep tax accountants scratching their heads to this day.
Is a Jaffa Cake a biscuit or a cake? (Because it’ll determine the VAT)
Here’s a modern head-scratcher: you pay no VAT on a plain biscuit, but add chocolate to it and suddenly it’s a luxury item with 20% VAT. But what about Jaffa Cakes? McVities went to court to prove Jaffa Cakes were cakes (zero-rated) not biscuits with chocolate (standard-rated). They even baked a giant Jaffa Cake to prove their point. The key evidence? Cakes go hard when stale, while biscuits go soft. Jaffa Cakes go hard, so they won the case!
Noisier helicopters = more tax
And don’t get me started on helicopter taxes. If you land your helicopter in London, the amount of tax you pay depends on how noisy your helicopter is. They actually have people measuring helicopter noise levels to work out the tax bill. The quieter your chopper, the less you pay.
More heads on your mannequin = more tax
A particularly bizarre one involves mannequins. If you import a mannequin with a second head, you pay less tax than if you import the heads separately. This has led to some very strange-looking mannequins being shipped into the UK, as retailers try to game the system.
The fizzier the drink = the more tax
Britain still keeps creating new weird tax situations. Since 2018, you pay more tax for drinking fizzy drinks, but only if they’re fizzy enough. Tax inspectors literally measure the bubbles in drinks to work out how much tax to charge. Drink manufacturers started reducing sugar levels just enough to dodge the tax, creating this strange middle-ground of semi-sugary drinks.
The royal family and tax
Even the Queen wasn’t exempt from tax oddities. Until 1992, the monarch didn’t pay income tax – this was a gentlemen’s agreement rather than law. But here’s the weird part: the Queen still had to pay a tax called “Royal Assent”. This meant she technically paid tax on her own laws! She had to approve every tax law, thereby taxing herself.
Death and taxes aren’t as certain (it depends on how you’re buried)
Tax doesn’t end when you die either. If you get buried in a wool shroud instead of a regular coffin, you pay less tax. This comes from an old law meant to boost the wool trade, but it’s still on the books. Some eco-conscious Brits have started using this centuries-old tax break for green burials!