I really like numeracy, which is literacy with numbers. That’s why I really like the second line in “Taxman.” If the taxman is getting 19 kilos and the individual taxed is retaining 1 pound, that means a marginal tax fee of 95 p.c, which is the precise fee they paid on their “unearned” earnings. I put “unearned” in citation marks as a result of, in fact, it was earned—the Beatles earned it on their investments.
George Harrison additionally knew on whom guilty these excessive tax charges: Britain’s politicians. That’s why within the background, you possibly can hear the singer castigating grasping, greedy Mr. Wilson and Mr. Heath. Harold Wilson, of the Labor Social gathering, was prime minister from 1964 to 1970, when Harrison wrote the music. Ted Heath led the Conservative Social gathering from 1965 to 1975. He was prime minister from 1970 to 1974, however that was properly after the music was written.
Happily, Margaret Thatcher turned prime minister in 1979. On the time the highest fee on each earned earnings and “unearned” earnings (you possibly can inform that I hate that time period) was a hefty 83 p.c. That very same yr, in addition to slicing charges at decrease earnings ranges, she lower the highest fee to 60 p.c and within the late Eighties lower it once more to 40 p.c.
That is from David R. Henderson, “We Want One other George Harrison,” TaxBytes, Institute for Coverage Innovation, Might 17, 2023.
Learn the entire thing, which isn’t lengthy.
