9 January 1799: Prime minister William Pitt (the Younger) introduced income tax at two shillings in the pound to raise funds for the Napoleonic wars.

Taxman, written by George Harrison, was the first track on the Beatles' LP, Revolver, released on 5 August 1966. “‘Taxman’ was when I first realised that even though we had started earning money, we were actually giving most of it away in taxes,” Harrison wrote in his autobiography I, Me, Mine. He was outspoken in his opposition to the government using their income to help fund the manufacture of military weapons.