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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: Introducing Income Tax
Description: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”, the American statesman Benjamin Franklin once said, but until 9 January, 1799, taxation looked very different to the way it does today, because this was the day the world was first introduced to income tax.Its introduction by British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger was not one of his most popular innovations, but he had good reason to be wanting to bring more money into the government’s coffers, given the national debt had doubled during the American War of Independence and now stood...