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Domesday Book and Taxation

There is still some academic debate about the exact purpose of Domesday Book. Some believe it is a land survey and some such as John Whiting, tax partner with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, believe it could have been the first written tax document. This is the text of the speech he gave at the launch of Domesday Online in August 2006.

It all comes round again

John Whiting examines Domesday Book

Some 940 years ago, an 11th century corporate raider found himself with both a problem and an opportunity. His victory in the contested takeover of England plc after a difficult shareholders’ meeting at Hastings and subsequent campaigns around the country had transformed him from William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, into William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and King of England. One of his (no doubt myriad) problems was in defining exactly what it was he had acquired by his takeover bid and then in working out how best to make his new, enlarged enterprise more profitable.

William turned, naturally, to taxation. Normandy’s tax system was well developed with the well-established hierarchical feudal system generating revenues, or at least obligations that could be commuted by payment, all flowing steadily upwards towards the Duke. Tolls, market dues, customs levied on trade and commerce, together with fines and forfeitures flowing from the administration of justice all provided significant revenues. These were in essence indirect taxes as we would now understand them, many administered by the Duke’s local officers often acting as tax farmers and paying their master an agreed amount.

Meanwhile, Anglo-Saxon England had not introduced such new-fangled indirect taxes to the same extent. The principal form of revenue was the geld, an essentially direct form of taxation based on the values of landholdings. The King also took profits from royal estates, tributes, tolls and various receipts from the administration of justice. The English King also benefited from a central Treasury in Winchester, but the geld, though potentially generating significant amounts of money, wasn’t always administered effectively and didn’t generate the level of payments that were expected.

One can picture William and his officials, taking a break from organising the building of the White Tower, designed to overawe London, and various other castles up and down the land, pondering how best to make sure his new subsidiary was profitable. He had gained a lot of land through conquest, having stripped various Anglo-Saxon lords of their holdings, but like any good chief executive didn’t see his role as directly managing such property. His solution was essentially to merge the two tax systems that he found himself with, taking lessons from each. Domesday Book became his enabling tool.

Sitting in the UK at the beginning of the 21st century, it’s interesting to reflect that we too have just seen the merger of two major revenue departments to form Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, guided by legislation to bring the new body into existence. That body is faced with administering a complex and diverse tax system, under pressure from its political masters to increase revenues. Knowing that further taxes are unpopular, the general technique today seems to be to squeeze more revenues out of the existing taxes, not least by bringing in anti-avoidance legislation and even considering a general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR).

If anyone wonders where the ideas for today’s tax gathering strategies came from, it’s perhaps apposite to reflect on William’s solution. Domesday Book was the Revenue & Customs Commissioners Act of its day, combined with a GAAR. Acting as a register of landholdings, it told the King who owned what and what it was worth. This delivered two crucial benefits:

Seal of William Duke of Normandy as King of England

It will be noted that, to William, the feudal system with its flow of indirect revenues was the preferred route. After all, this was what he was familiar with from his Norman French homeland where it had evolved. Some 900 years later, the UK gained another French-evolved tax with the advent of VAT (Value Added Tax). Just as the feudal system became almost universal in the then western world, VAT has also been embraced almost everywhere.

Domesday Book, then, was a major component in putting the fiscal foundations of Duke William’s new kingdom on a firm footing. It laid down the framework that could be used by the King’s officials in gathering the taxes. Conceptually at least, there would be scope for those who were being taxed to object to how they were assessed. There was probably a shortage in the 11th century of Chartered Tax Advisers specialising in geld compliance or appeals against feudal levies, though it might be argued that Hereward the Wake and, later, Robin Hood were simply ahead of the time and would nowadays consider joining the Chartered Institute of Taxation or other tax bodies.

With the foundations provided by Domesday, William’s successors inherited a kingdom with good revenue streams. One additional step that William’s youngest son, Henry Beauclerk, took when he became Henry I was to strengthen the position of the Treasury. That central function discernable in the Anglo-Saxon/Anglo-Danish kingdom was lacking in the pure feudalism of Normandy. The larger kingdom and indeed empire demanded a strengthened central unit with increasing recognition of various specialist functions.

Many readers will be well aware that recently the 21st century UK Treasury has been strengthened by a considerable increase in its tax policy team in the wake of the O’Donnell Report. Could the position now filled by Mark Neale be identified with one of the Chamberlains of the Norman Treasury, one wonders? Though surely there is no analogy here with the rather rueful comment in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle in the 11th century when noting ‘taxes that never ceased nor slackened’.

It does seem that there are plenty of resonances between Domesday Book and the position that those of us involved with taxation find ourselves in today. Domesday itself could be viewed as the equivalent of the tax legislation (and is one of the few books physically bigger than the Tolleys/CCH tax handbooks); it was in many ways the equivalent of the GAAR that is being contemplated; it was instrumental in formalising the merger of two tax authorities with much greater emphasis coming through of indirect taxes; and it paved the way for a more powerful, centralised Treasury. If this picture does strike any chords with today’s reader, there is perhaps also a cautionary note to sound. Whilst Domesday Book and fiscal organisation went steadily ahead for 50 years, the death of Henry I brought a lengthy period of chaos and anarchy whilst Matilda and Stephen vied for power. Surely no such thing could come out of the Treasury today?

John Whiting is a tax partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

 

The views expressed here are those of John Whiting and do not necessarily represent the views of The National Archives.