Death and Taxes

Someone, somewhere, is reputed to have said that the only two things certain in this life are Death and Taxes. No doubt someone will tell us ‘who’ and ‘when’, email us if you know. Many countries have estate duty or taxes based upon the value of a deceased person’s estate at the time of their death. In the U.K. we have seen various ‘death duties’ or ‘inheritance taxes’ or even ‘capital transfer tax’ to prevent you from trying to give it away before the tax-man grabs it, even though we paid enough tax earning it in the first place.

Until we began to research the Modbury Parish Registers we hadn’t realised how long ago some of these things started. When examining the fiche for Modbury PR 3, we came across the following entries:

(Immediately after the last baptism in September 1783)

registered according to an act passed in the twenty third year of the Reign of George the third beginning the first day of October one thousand seven Hundred and Eighty three with a tax of three pence on every baptism, burial and marriage

A similar note appears immediately before the first burial in October 1783 later in the same register. On another part-used page we found

Additional duty paid for one year commencing

£1- 5s-0d   0- 2 –6d   1- 2 –6d   1- 3 –0d   0- 2 –3d   1- 0 –9d   1- 2 –3d   0- 2 –0d   1- 0 –3d

From Octo^R: 1^st: 1783 to Octo^R: 1^st: 1784

On Baptisms, Burials & Marriages                  

Deduct                                                        

Bal                                                              

From Octo^R: 1^st: 1784 to Octo^R: 1^st: 1785        

Deduct                                                        

Bal.                                                             

From Octo^R: 1^st: 1785 to Octo^R: 1^st: 1786        

Deduct                                                        

Bal.             

                                       

At first we were a bit puzzled by the deductions, until we realised that these deductions must be in respect of the ‘Paupers’ who were baptised, buried or married in the relevant year. From the 1st October 1783 onwards there are quite a lot of entries in the registers where a letter ‘P’ has been written alongside an entry, and if you add these up it correlates to the deductions mentioned.

 

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Sherriff Family History, the Parish Registers of Modbury, and Yealmpton Devon and other items of Interest

© 2002-6 Paul and Christine Sherriff – Last Updated 11 Apr 2006 16:55

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