Stamp Duty and playing cards

A few years ago I was researching a new talk that involves a reference to playing cards and was astonished the learn the following. Why didn't anyone ever tell me this before?

When you look at the central image of a spade on the Ace of Spades it is often more ornate than that on the other aces and the reason is tax related!

Apparently this all began in the 17th century under the reign of King James. He passed a law requiring the Ace of Spades to bear an insignia of the printing house as proof of payment of a tax on the local manufacture of cards. 

This ornamental embossing was also intended to prevent forgery of the revenue stamp. To forge an ace of spades was punishable by hanging, hence it is sometimes still known as the ‘hanging card’. 

Stamp duty was extended to playing cards in 1711 by Queen Anne and lasted until 1960. All decks of playing cards printed and sold in the United Kingdom were liable to tax under the Stamp Act 1765, and the Ace of Spades carried an indication of the name of the printer and the fact that the tax had been paid.

I am astonished that I have only found this out now - all these years after I started to work in tax having already established my magical hobby!

Are HMRC scared of witches putting spells on them?

Some years back the Romanian government passed a law to tax the income of witches, fortune tellers, and astrologers.

Associated Press had previously reported that Romanian senators rejected a proposal to tax witches and fortune tellers. The suggestion was that they were scared of hearing those feared words:

"Abracadabra, we'll turn all of you into toads!"

At that time the draft law would have required witches and fortune tellers to produce receipts, and would also have held them liable for wrong predictions!

The BBC then reported that the witches were using cat excrement and dead dogs to cast spells on the government for making them pay income tax. Apparently Magic and superstition in Romania are taken very seriously. The president and his aides wear purple on Thursdays, allegedly to ward off evil spirits.

Somehow I can't imagine HMRC being worried about wrong predictions. They get enough of these from 'experts' ;-)

Anti Tax Man

An amusing idea was raised recently on The Magic Circle discussion forum (Yes - I'm a member although I don't perform as often as I used to; it's my age you know!)

We all make things vanish, transpose, appear, transform etc on a daily basis. What if you woke up one day & found you really could do this stuff? Maybe after being bitten by a radioactive magic rabbit?

No props, no gimmicks, just real magical powers

Would you simply become the worlds greatest magician? Or don a colourful costume & save the world from injustice?

If you chose the latter & became a super hero - what would you call yourself?

I thought I'd become 'Anti Tax Man'. Well, I couldn't call myself, SuperTaxMan could I?

Any better suggestions? Please add them by way of comments on this thread or by email.

Not another boring accountant (part two)

I explained how and why I came to appear on Newsnight in a previous posting.

My actual TV slot comprised a very short magic trick (the self assessment pom pom stick) followed by me entering into the spirit of things, by being shown 'magically' changing from one outfit to another.. The idea was to provide examples to match the voice over - If not a magician then what next for the chartered accountant in films? So, through the wonders of television, as they say, they showed me magically transforming into a mad scientist then a James Bond style secret agent and finally a gumshoe detective.

At the end I recall Peter Snow, who hadn't seen what we filmed, started his subsequent interview by saying. Of course, not all accountants are as entertaining as Mark Lee. How kind!