Article in the Birmingham Daily Gazette by Patrick Sullivan on 16th April 1956 on the use of LEO I to calculate tax tables following the 1956 budget.

Transcript :

Leo has the answers
By Patrick Sullivan

Within minutes of Mr. Macmillan announcing any changes affecting P.A.Y.E., the big job of preparing the new tax tables for the next year, to tell you and your employers what you pay, will begin.

This task will be completed in a few hours by an astonishing electronic robot, “Leo”, the world's first automatic office.

Tax officials will go tomorrow to the Cadby Hall headquarters of the London caterers who built this new super-calculator to handle their own clerical work, and let “Leo” into their confidence the moment Mr McMillan finishes speaking.

Weeks saved
During the night “Leo” will produce not only the normal weekly tables for all 52 weeks of the year, but also the special tables for taxing monthly salaries.

As the tables are produced they will be scrutinised by the Inland Revenue officials on the spot. By next morning all the tables will be ready to be sent to the stationary office for printing. Weeks saved in this way may mean that any P.A.Y.E. changes can be affected by firms that much earlier this year.

The production of these tables by “Leo” will mark the culmination of a collaboration, which began three years ago, between the Inland Revenue and the caterers concerned. The first year no changes were made by the Chancellor affecting P.A. Y.E. so “Leo” was not actually called upon.

As “Leo” can be given no particulars of what is in the budget until the Chancellor has spoken, a programme of instructions has to be created in advance to cover any foreseeable contingency. This year - as last - the programme will need to cover the possibility of any of the rates of tax being altered, or any of the ranges of income for which reduced - or increased - rates of tax apply.

It will cover, too, the possibility of alterations to personal allowances or to earned income reliefs.

Rather more difficult in 1955, because it had an element of crystal gazing, the programme had to cope with the possible introductions of such of the various recommendations made in the second report of the Royal Commission on Taxation as would affect the tax tables. All that is required for “Leo” to give effect to the actual budget provisions is for a few, coded characters to be perforated on a paper tape by reference to the particulars handed over by the Inland Revenue officials. Then it is able to go into action. Before 10:00 p.m. on Budget Day, the first sets of tables will have been sent to the printers.

This remarkable robot produces its results in tabulated form. While it is doing the printing it is simultaneously making the calculations for the next set of figures. To guard against possible, though unlikely, misprinting by the printing mechanism, it is arranged that the results produced by “Leo” shall be tabulated at the same time by two independent printing mechanisms. The statement produced by one printer is used by the compositors and the statement from the other is held and used as a proofreader’s copy.

Although “Leo” will work out the P.A.Y.E. tables for everyone else in the country it makes no use of them itself. For when “Leo” produces its employers payroll each week it is able to calculate the P.A.Y.E. deductions for each employee from the same formulae as it uses for preparing the tables; the computer does this so quickly that there is no point in burdening it with the tables.

Pay packets
Each week “Leo” calculates the pay packet for 10,000 of the company's employees. In doing this it takes account of the 21 individual factors affecting the workers’ pay - overtime, insurance, commission, P.A.Y.E., pension deductions and so on.

For each employee, it does no fewer than 1,000 separate calculations and prints the pay slip with all details. This work takes about 1 1/2 seconds.

The whole operation, including a running total of the number of £1 notes, 10s. notes, coins and insurance stamps needed, takes about 3 1/2 hours. This compares with 1,300 man hours or so, using the fastest traditional office machinery.