Hearth tax significant proportion of householders were not liable to pay at all. The hearth tax was much resented because it often entailed inspection of the interior of dwellings by the sub-collectors and petty constables, who had legal authority to enter every property to check on the number of hearths. Some people stopped up their chimneys so that the tax was not due on them, but where this was discovered by the assessors the tax was doubled. On 31 July 1684, a fire in Churchill, Oxfordshire, destroyed 20 houses and many other buildings, and killed four people. It was apparently caused by
History of the English fiscal system as 'hearth money'. In 1688, monthly assessment were introduced, followed by income tax, followed by twelve-monthly assessments in 1690 and 1691. The way was thus prepared for the property tax of 1692, imposing a rate of 4s. in the pound on real estate, offices and personal property. However, the old difficulties of collection turned it mainly into a land tax, by which name it became generally known. The 4s. rate brought in £1,922,712, a return which declined in later years. To meet the shortfall, therefore, a fixed quota of nearly half a million (a 1s. rate) was adopted in 1697,