A look back to tax in 1952

I am sure that all of our readers will want to join me in extending our sympathy to the family of Her late Majesty and offer our very best wishes to the new King as he begins his reign.

There will be few readers of the magazine who will be able to remember the accession of the Queen on 6 February 1952 and I assume nobody who was actually practising tax at the time – if there is we would certainly like to hear from them.

I thought our way of marking the Queen’s passing would be to look back at the tax world as it was when she succeeded to the throne. 1952 was only a few years after the war. The Labour government which had been in power since 1945 had been defeated in October 1951 and Winston Churchill had returned as prime...