[2] The current name was promoted by the use of the expression "from Revenue and Customs" in a series of annual radio, and to a lesser extent, television public information broadcasts in the 2000s and 2010s.

During the 18th and early 19th centuries at various times (as financial strains on the economy demanded, and Parliament allowed) stamp duties were extended above a certain threshold of sale value to cover newspapers, pamphlets, lottery tickets, apprentices' indentures, advertisements, playing cards, dice, hats, gloves, patent medicines, perfumes, insurance policies, gold and silver plate and armorial bearings (coats of arms).

One further category is the most widely cited example of an unpopular and most difficult to enforce tax, the Duty on Hair Powder Act 1795.

The Permanent Secretary to the Treasury has the main advisory, policy informative role to play in the enabling of the department's functions, in liaison with board chairman who bore overall responsibility along with the rest of the board for the operational carrying out of the Inland Revenue's functions.

As sub-departments (typically, Offices, Boards and Bureaus) have issued their own taxes or expanded their remit, they too have seen Comptrollers General and Chairmen.

An example was Robert Wilkie Stanton, Comptroller of Stamps and Taxes (Scotland), Board of Inland Revenue.