Death and taxes: estate duty – a neglected factor in changes to British business structure after World War Two

This paper will examine Estate Duty(ED) and its impact on the structure of smaller British businesses. ED was one of the most controversial and wide-ranging taxes ever imposed in the UK. It was the first substantive tax on capital. It was partly responsible for the reconfiguration of British business in the 1940s- 1950s as businesses sought to avoid the Duty with measures which could result in the loss of a family firm to the “corporate economy”. Examining this phenomenon adds a hitherto unexplored dimension to the arguments of business historians surrounding the structure of British business and its relative performance after World War II.