Act 4 (Taxes)

Act 4 (Taxes)
Proposed	20 September 2008
Imperial Consent given on	20 September 2008
Imperial Consent given at	Parliament Hall, Wrythe
Imperial Consent given by	HRH Emperor Terry I
Amended by	• Act 15 (2nd Revision to Existing Laws)  • Act 28 (4th Revision to Existing Laws)

Act 4 (Taxes) of the Parliament of Austenasia was an Act of Parliament passed on 20 September 2008 and repealed on 6 December 2008. The law established a simple method of tax collection for the Empire.

Act 4 was passed within several hours of Austenasia declaring independence alongside five other Acts - Act 2 (Food and Trade), Act 3 (Subjects), Act 5 (Utilities), Act 6 (Honours) and Act 7 (Emergency Services). These were all given Imperial Consent by Emperor Terry I at the same time, but became law over the period of a few hours due to the then requirement of the Emperor reading out new laws to the assembled population of Wrythe; to prevent the Imperial Family from getting bored, the Acts were not read out uninterruptedly but with breaks between each, and so took several hours for all of them to become law.

The Act required all subjects to pay the sum of £1 every month to a tax collector appointed by their respective Representative. Money collected would be spent on "the upkeep of the Empire", with the Monarch and Prime Minister deciding what it would be spent on.

Law 2 of Act 15 (2nd Revision to Existing Laws) gave the Chancellor a say alongside the Monarch and Prime Minister on government expenditure, and Law 1 of Act 28 (4th Revision of Existing Laws) raised the amount of money paid per subject each month to £2, a tax rate which remained until the abolition of taxes in November 2013. The passing of Act 28 amended the whole of Act 4, making it the first Act to have the entirety of its original form repealed and replaced with amendments in other Acts.