Taxation Flashcards
How effectively was the monarchy financed?
Two main sources of income:
o Ordinary revenue – royal lands and monarch’s status as a landlord.
o Extraordinary revenue – taxation granted by parliament for the monarch’s special needs, usually the costs of war.
- A constant theme of the Tudor period was the tension between the crown’s income and expenditure – the monarchy rarely had enough money and was often reliant on parliamentary taxation.
- Henry VIII spent more than 100,000 pounds on building Hampton Court and Whitehall, while the Royal Household in the 1550s was costing 75,000 pounds a year to run.
What was the North and Social Unrest about?
o Raising taxation could cause problems for the monarchy because it could lead to dangerous unrest – especially in poorer Northern regions, when tax coincided with hardship caused by harvest or disease.
o Revolts of 1489 and 1497, and the POG 1536 under Henry VII were both sparked by resentment over high levels of taxation, and poverty in the north.
o Any revolt against Tudor government was potentially serious; this led to the development of a new form of taxation from 1513, the subsidy, which was supposed to be a fairer method of raising money.
What was the taxation like before 1513?
OUT OF DATE, UNFAIR, INEFFICIENT
o 15ths and 10ths – based on property.
o Since 1334 the amounts paid by each local community had been fixed:
- Boroughs = 1/10th
- Countryside = 1/15th
- Under this system each 15th and 10th was expected to yield 29,500 pounds.
> < OUT OF DATE: paying levels of taxation that had been set 150 years before; this took no account of population or other social and economic changes.
> < INFLATION: meant that these amount no longer met the expenditure needs of the government.
> < UNFAIR: as each community was responsible for raising a fixed sum rather than each individual paying a sum based on their personal wealth – possible for those with wealth and power to avoid paying their share; poorest suffered most.
> < TOWNS: urban towns were suffering from depopulation while there was increasing wealth generation in the countryside as a result of the growth in the English cloth and wool trade.
What was the 1513 Subsidy?
o Wolsey needed new funding for Henry VIII’s wars with France – 1509-1520 govt. spent 1 million pounds on war effort but only generated 25,000 pounds from ordinary revenues.
o Wolsey’s solution was to introduce a subsidy, passed by parliament in 1513:
- Each person assessed by income – land, wages, possessions – only had to pay tax on one category –> poor were not paying more than gentry, which was the case through 10ths and 15ths.
- Separate assessment for nobility based on their rank.
- Local officials assessed people – usually JPs, monitored by national commissioners.
What were the impacts of the 1513 subsidies?
+ Reduced the amount of resentment and ensured the wealthier in society contributed more to taxation than its poorer members.
+ So successful that it was repeated by Wolsey in 1514, 1515 and 1523 – between 1515 and 1523 he raised over 300,000 compared to 1512 and 1517 where he only raised just over 100,000
+ Wolsey’s innovation enabled Cromwell to develop the collection of subsidies further – in 1534 Cromwell asked parliament for a subsidy, which was unheard of! He justified it on the grounds that Henry had ruled England successfully for 25 years and his loyal subjects ought to support him by paying tax.
+By the start of Elizabeth’s reign, parliament were regularly granting subsidies, in times of peace which yielded 140,000 each time.
- However, by the end it was only yielding 80,000 which suggests that although the 1513 subsidy was influential in developing new methods of taxation, its effectiveness in increasing royal income from taxation was not sustained.
- Even Wolsey had problems raising subsidies – mainly due to demands of war between 1512 and 1529, parliament were becoming reluctant to grant subsidies.
- In 1523 parliament refused to grant Wolsey the 800,000 in taxation and he had to negotiate for a lesser sum… Wolsey was forced to raise a non-parliamentary tax known as the ‘Amicable Grant’
- Amicable Grant 1525 – controversial as it was an attempt to raise tax without the consent of parliament, Henry was desperate for money for war with France, levied on top of the 1523 subsidy and was instantly unpopular…. Lead to unrest across East Anglia. The Grant was blamed on Wolsey, not Henry!
What were the subsidies under Elizabeth like?
FIXED TAXES, CORRUPTION
o Elizabeth’s obsession with caution and political stability meant that problems emerged with her use of subsidy…
o Instead of using Wolsey’s flexible system, Elizabeth permitted the rates at which tax was paid to become fixed – did not take inflation into account!
- Government received less money.
- Corruption – after 1563 each taxpayer’s assessment if their wealth was accepted as accurate, and they were no longer required to take an oath, so people claimed they had less than they did (William Cecil had an income of 4000 a year but only admitted to 133 pounds!)
- Tax records were not updated – in 1523 17,000 taxpayers were assessed, but in 1566 there were only 7,700 taxpayers!
- Corruption and stagnation contributed to the political tensions of the 1590’s, especially as Elizabeth was forced to exploit her royal prerogative in order to fund her wars…
+ But she didn’t face the same type of tax rebellion that Henry did in 1489 and 1497, because there was increased control of localities exercised by the Crown!
