ABSTRACT
At the start of the long wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, the taxes available to the British state fell mainly on outlays made by its citizens on domestically produced commodities and services. The British economy continued to grow during the French wars and that growth was accompanied by the creation of additional capacity in the armaments, iron, food-processing, shipbuilding and textile industries, which helped to supply the army and navy with the weapons, equipment, clothing and food required to defeat the enemy. The commissioners and boards that Britain's relatively powerful fiscal state placed in charge of directing departments responsible for taxation were seriously undermanned. Once parliament accepted the principle of an income tax, successive amendments to the law, reforms to the administration and an upward trend in nominal money incomes made the tax the most productive source of tax revenue employed to finance the Napoleonic War.
