Diane D 1959 #50sWomen

He was in and out of No 10 in 16 mins. Pretty short meeting that

On This Day in 1990 Married women in Britain became independent entities for income tax purposes for the first time. From the start of the 1990–91 tax year, they were fully responsible for their own tax declarations and their income was no longer automatically assessed as part of their husband’s. The reform was introduced under Margaret Thatcher, who was Prime Minister at the time. Before the 6th April 1990, for generations, the tax system had treated a married woman’s earnings as an extension of her husband’s. He was legally responsible for declaring and paying tax on her income; she had no separate tax privacy or personal allowance in her own right. The change, introduced under the independent taxation reforms first announced in the 1988 Budget ended that legal fiction and gave every married woman the same status as any other adult taxpayer. It was part of a broader, long-term shift away from older legal assumptions about marriage, a process that had been unfolding for over a century. Merely 36 years ago, and in the sweep of British history that is astonishingly recent. Many women who are grandparents today were already working adults when this change took effect. Their own mothers had lived their entire married lives under the old rules. It is a vivid illustration that the legal recognition of women; adult human females, as fully independent, rights-bearing individuals is not some ancient, settled tradition. It is modern, hard-won, and still within living memory. The rights women secured in the 20th century, including this one, were fought for on the clear understanding that “woman” means adult human female. Those rights were not granted to a feeling, an identity, or a self-description; they were secured for biological women precisely because of the historical and legal incapacities that had been imposed on them as a sex. We must defend them as such. Most households paid about the same tax overall, but the way it was calculated changed. Couples where both partners earned often did a bit better (or at least fairer), while single-earner households could lose some tax advantages over time as old allowances were phased out. The biggest change wasn’t the amount paid; it was that each person became responsible for their own income and tax, rather than the husband handling everything. On this day in 1990 Britain took an important step forward. Let’s make sure we never take that step backward...