Lowering the income-tax threshold tripled taxpayers and sparked working-class tax resistance

Evidence

Th e exemption limit was reduced from £160 to £130, which meant a threefold increase in taxpayers by 1918– 1919 as compared with fi ve years prior. By the summer of 1917 there was a fullblown movement in opposition to the reduction of the exemption limit, mainly led by miners and coal workers who oft en refused to pay income tax. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1692

Categorization

• SEED: An article angle: how tax-threshold policy rather than rates quietly expands the fiscal reach of the state onto new classes — and how the taxed working class answered with a refusal movement.