This week's opinion

‘Husband with a meal ticket to get a sweetmeat (5).’ So ran a recent crossword clue in The Times. To understand it you had to know about luncheon vouchers. This caused me to think about their place in taxation and then more generally about the effect of inflation on tax allowances.

Readers may remember that luncheon vouchers had a face value of 15p and when provided by an employer were tax-free. The concession was introduced after the second world war at a time of rationing to help people to have at least one square meal a day. According to the Hansard debates it was to give workers who had to buy their own lunch a subsidy to put them in the same position as employees with workplace canteens who could buy meals at cost. By the time the concession was withdrawn that 15p had become...