* * ANORAK ALERT * * ! !

Hi Steve,
 
You may recall a list of tax codes I sent you some months ago...  Well someone has given me a magazine published by "City of London Phonograph & Gramophone Society" which appeared about a year ago, which contains a detailed discussion of all the tax codes, the dates and the Official Reasons for all the changes.  So shot down again. 
 
This is of course better researched and more informative than my "hand made" version, but as always with such publications, despite the Official material used in the Research, there are wretched mistakes, some of which I can pick out.
 
For the sake of correctness, I'll send you the correct list to replace the one I sent you - see below:
 
The mistakes are based on  1)  too much use of documents and not enough use of actual records (I had the opposite fault),  and  2) only taking "H.M.V." as the example, disregarding Decca etc.
 
Some of the changes were price increases as well as Tax alterations.  Now I have actual dates rather than estimates, and the actual amounts of tax charged.  I'll spare you the discussion that runs for several pages if you like.

TABLE OF PURCHASE TAX & PRICE CHANGES & RELATED TAX LETTERS.

21 Oct. 40        T          Purchase Tax introduced  33.3%  ("No Tax" stamps applied to stock already purchased.)
  1 Jan. 42         -          price increase
15 Apr. 42       DT         Purchase Tax increase  66.6%        (on E.M.I. records, the D is added above the T.)
13 Apr. 43       TT         Purchase Tax increase  100% !!
10 Apr. 46       ST         Purchase Tax reduction  33.3%
13 Nov. 47       LT         Purchase Tax increase  50%
 9 Apr. 48      DT(48)    Purchase Tax increase  66.6%        CT on Decca
30 Dec. 50      DTP       price increase           CT+IP on Decca  (also AT stamps)
15 Apr. 53        N          Purchase Tax reduction  50%
27 Oct. 55       RT        Purchase Tax increase  60%
31 Oct. 55         -         price increase
27 Aug. 56        -          price reduction  (45 r.p.m. singles)
  1 Jun. 57       XT        price increase         (not on Decca)
  1 Oct. 58        -          price reduction (on E.P.s - 7ER series only)   (UT stamps)
  8 Apr. 59       ET        Purchase Tax reduction  50%
 1 Aug. 60       WT       price changes on some series*
 26 Jul. 61       OT        Purchase Tax increase  55%  and price changes
10 Apr. 62        ZT        Purchase Tax reduction  45%  and price changes
26 Nov. 62       PT        price changes on some series*
 1 Jan. 63        MT        Purchase Tax reduction  25%
  1 Jul. 63        KT        price changes
 21 Jul. 66        -          Purchase Tax increase  27.5%
20 Mar. 68        -          Purchase Tax increase  50%
23 Nov. 68        -          Purchase Tax increase  55%
 20 Jul. 71        -          Purchase Tax reduction  45%
21 Mar. 72        -          Purchase Tax reduction  25%
  2 Apr. 73        -          Purchase Tax replaced by V.A.T.
 
* I've omitted the list of series because it is obviously incomplete, only referring to H.M.V.
 
No mention is made of  JT,  which appeared in 1968 and can still be seen faintly on Decca 45s as late as 1972, but at least this publication goes some way to explaining what it means.  It probably also explains the  WOT  and the  PKMT, etc.
 
I had no idea how much the tax increased the price of the records.  The effect is that through some years (esp.1943-46) some records are rarer than they would have been.  It also accounts for so many post-war repressings, suddenly in 1946 people started buying records again and practically everything was made available.  (There was a big fuss made by the record industry about March 1959 since book publishers had always managed to get books exempted.)
 
(Further details on request - ha ha.)
 
All the best - Dave.

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