As the new tax year gets under way here in the UK, have you ever wondered why on earth our tax year starts on 6 April? To understand this, we have to go back almost two millennia.
Feast days
We’ll start with the origins of the Catholic liturgical calendar. From the fourth century the Catholic Church gradually adopted key feast days. Initially these focused on the Resurrection (Easter Sunday) and the commemoration of martyrs. Later came Christmas, the Annunciation (25 March) and, gradually, other feast days honouring saints.
Quarter days
In England four of these religious festivals came to have additional significance. (There were differences in other parts of the British Isles.) Since at least the Middle Ages, these were observed as secular ‘quarter days’, with vernacular names:
- The Feast of the Annunciation, 25 March. Commemorating the visit of the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, this was known in England as ‘Lady Day’.
- The Feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, 24 June. Its secular name was ‘Midsummer Day’.
- The Feast of St Michael and All Angels, 29 September, became ‘Michaelmas Day’.
- The Feast of the Nativity of Jesus, 25 December, is of course ‘Christmas Day’.
On these quarter days, debts were settled and new contracts commenced. Rents were due, new tenancies began, servants were hired and so on.
Lady Day and New Year
Lady Day had particular significance. The Julian Calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar and taking effect in the year 45 BCE, had established 1 January as New Year’s Day; and it’s likely that for the people going about their daily lives this never changed. However, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Church, wishing to assert its authority, chose to adopt a date of religious significance for its New Year. The date chosen was the Feast of the Annunciation – 25 March – since it marked the ‘new beginning’ when the Archangel Gabriel brought news that Mary would bear the son of God.
In England, Wales, Ireland and the British colonies, from 1155 until 1752 – long after Henry VIII’s split with Rome – the start of the ecclesiastical year continued to be 25 March. We see this in parish registers. Every baptism, marriage or burial occurring between 1 January and 24 March is recorded as taking place in what, to our minds, is the previous year.
Yet because of the all-pervading authority of the Church it was not only the ecclesiastical year but also the legal year that started on that date. We see evidence of this in the signing of many year-long contracts – for example, between landowners and tenant farmers – on ‘Lady Day’.
But what does any of this have to do with taxes?
Switching from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar
The Julian Calendar was based on a solar year with 12 months, but a miscalculation of 11 minutes resulted in a leap year formula that overcompensated to the extent that every 128 years a whole day was added. By the 16th century, astronomical events such as the equinoxes and solstices were falling ten days early; and since the timing of Easter was linked to the vernal equinox, it was increasingly becoming removed from its proper season. To overcome these problems, in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII introduced the ‘Gregorian’ or ‘New Style’ Calendar.
Not all countries adopted the Gregorian Calendar immediately. In the UK and British dominions it wouldn’t be adopted until 1751–52. By the time of the passing of the Calendar (New Style) Act of 1750, the Julian Calendar was 11 days out of sync with astronomical events and seasons. Those 11 days were removed in one fell swoop from September 1752. This meant that, for one year only, 2 September was followed by 14 September.
Eleven days that shook the nation
The loss of these 11 days was the cause of much distress. Fear grew that everyone’s life would be shortened by this number of days. There was also upset about the impact on the timing of Easter, and there was opposition still to the ‘popish’ calendar. There were financial concerns too. The removal of 11 days from September 1752 would impact on financial obligations: any financial arrangements calculated on the annual basis would result in unfair overpayment on the one hand or loss of revenue on the other. All of this may or may not have led to the Calendar Riots of 1752, although more recently, it has been suggested this may be a sort of Georgian urban myth.
And finally: the tax year
As the start of the English legal year, Lady Day also marked the new tax year. And so, with the loss of the 11 days in September 1752, and the potential loss of 11 days’ tax revenue for the government, the decision was taken to delay the collection of taxes. In 1752–53, the tax year was extended by 11 days, so that in 1753 and thereafter, the new tax year would commence on 5 April. That day became known as ‘Old Lady Day’, a term still in use in 1891, when Thomas Hardy wrote Tess of the d’Urbervilles:
At length it was the eve of Old Lady-Day, and the agricultural world was in a fever of mobility such as only occurs at that particular date of the year. It is a day of fulfilment; agreements for outdoor service during the ensuing year, entered into at Candlemas, are to be now carried out. The labourers […] who wish to remain no longer in old places are removing to the new farms.
Finally, a further tweak was made to the calendar in 1800, moving the tax year forward one more day to 6 April; and there it has remained.And that is why we start the new tax year next week – an arcane tale that brings in the complexities of European religious and political history alongside the eternal rhythms of the universe.
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