Death and taxes: Estate duty – a neglected factor in changes to British business structure after World War two
研究遗产税如何影响二战后英国小企业结构，企业为避税导致家族企业向公司经济转变，为商业史学家关于英国企业结构的争论提供新维度。
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.