In the history of Britain, direct taxation was not popular because it was deemed to infringe on personal freedom and privacy because it was necessary to assess the property status of taxpayers as a judicial investigation. After the introduction of income tax, it is also mainly through classified collection and source taxation to avoid the evaluation problem. However, there are still some income in the classified income tax that cannot be taxed from the source and must be assessed to determine the tax amount. How does the UK solve this problem?

For income taxes that cannot be collected at the source, the government's management relies on a mixed system consisting of professional managers and laymen. In each county of England, the grand jury selects the appointed commissioner of land tax from potential taxpayers. The commissioner must meet certain property conditions, that is, their property value must be more than 100 pounds. These commissioners are responsible for appointing general appointed commissioners, who pay income tax, and their annual income from all sources must be more than 200 pounds. A general appointed commissioner may elect a supplementary appointed commissioner from among residents who have an annual income of ￡ 100. The general appointed commissioner also appoints the assessor, who selects the collector. Assessors and tax collectors are businessmen in towns or small farmers in villages. In 1860/1961, there were 54000 assessors in Britain. Assessors and collectors receive a commission of 1.5p for every pound of tax levied. The general appointed commissioner can also appoint a clerk to provide support services for himself and pay him remuneration from the commission of the tax collected. Most clerks have other professions, such as lawyers, and they are independent of the government. The supplementary commissioners are also assisted by clerks, who are directly paid by the central government. However, these clerks are part-time, not permanent government officials.

In the UK, this way of assessment and taxation is considered as "taxation through a voluntary intermediary". The local non professional management is coordinated by a central agency in London. The Internal Revenue Commission sends permanent officials throughout the country. They manage the property tax as investigators, and also have the responsibility to supervise the newly levied income tax and solve the problems encountered by general appointed commissioners.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of this hybrid system? It is believed that the general appointed commissioner has considerable discretion, is a person in a respected position in society, does not favor a party or exert improper influence, and is a person with integrity, honesty and strong independence. Non professional appointed commissioners and assessors are selected from the taxpaying class and rely on them to conduct tax assessment, collection and dispute settlement. The final decision on tax liability is in the hands of the taxpaying public members, not government officials. The whole process is almost unaffected by administrative power and court decisions. This can protect taxpayers from being squeezed by too powerful management institutions and greedy governments, and is conducive to ensuring taxpayer recognition, compliance and cooperation. However, this approach tolerates a certain degree of tax avoidance. If the degree of tax avoidance is serious, it will also erode people's perception of tax fairness, and ultimately affect taxpayers' trust and compliance. Therefore, the controversy and game never stop. Government officials hope to exert more inspection and control, and experts hope to exert their authority to withstand pressure to maintain local autonomy and citizen participation. The central government also started to establish an information collection and inspection system. During 1832-1875, more than 20 central inspection teams were set up to supervise and strengthen local governments' implementation of national laws and standards.

This kind of dispute and the dilemma of appraisers and collectors in the game. Some small businessmen are ordered by their administrative regions to act as assessors and collectors, often caught between two groups with opposite and conflicting interests, one is the country, the other is their business clients. Some people who refuse to perform this duty will be fined 10 pounds. In 1862, Gladstone suggested that the Internal Revenue Commission should have the authority to take over the collection of income taxes in any area outside London. This suggestion had to be withdrawn finally, because income tax was still temporarily collected at that time. Opponents believed that since it was temporary, it was necessary to make great efforts to give the government more power in order to recover the trivial losses caused by the dereliction of duty collectors?

In 1870, Robert Law carefully raised the issue again: "Is the time ripe for us to end the tax collection mechanism for local administrative region officials?" He thought that many collectors were uneducated and corrupt, ignoring the idea of the finance minister. However, in the 1871 reform, the general appointed commissioner was retained, and the Tax Bureau also believed that it was difficult to design a model that could ensure fairness and justice better than the general appointed commissioner system. In the 1879 reform, the General Commissioners were allowed to transfer the collection responsibility to the Internal Revenue Commission.

In 1887, the position of assessors was challenged again. The government proposed to authorize the Internal Revenue Commission to delegate assessment to investigators when vacancies occur, and also proposed to abolish the collector positions for tax purposes D and E. The proposal aroused anger. Hubbard, an experienced income tax reformer, condemned this as a threat to freedom and justice. He believed that the current assessors were carefully selected, and they were gentlemen with high reputation in their communities. They not only had extensive business knowledge, but also knew how to do business and keep accounts. However, the official investigators knew nothing about this, and they would only act according to one rule, namely "seizing". After this defeat, the reforms in 1891 and 1892 only made minor adjustments to the policy, replacing the way of paying commissions by pound to assessors and collectors with fixed salaries. It was not until the 1920s that the work of assessment and collection was handed over to government officials.

It is very important for income tax to be accepted by people in the 19th century that Britain combined centralized bureaucracy with local lay control. This will help to establish the legitimacy of taxation and avoid interference from an overly powerful administrative body. Later, Britain changed to a welfare state, and its national functions continued to expand. The country exchanged generous welfare expenditure for people to give up some rights, which weakened the British characteristic of volunteerism in the 19th century. The tax assessment and collection of voluntary organizations died.

(The author is a scholar of finance and taxation)