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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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poll tax
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A tax levied by 'poll' or head of population, a method notorious in English history for having partly provoked the *Peasants' Revolt. It was similarly unpopular and only marginally less dramatic in its effects when imposed by the Conservative government in the 1980s under the euphemism of 'community charge'. Its supporters, among whom Mrs *Thatcher was prominent, argued that it was fair (in the limited sense that everybody paid the same) and that it had the advantage of making all adult citizens aware of the level of *local taxes (these had impinged only on householders under the previous system of rates). Its more manifest unfairness was that it took no account of ability to pay, apart from a few categories of people eligible for an 80% reduction.
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The poll tax was introduced with relatively little trouble in Scotland in 1989; but the approach of the first collection of the tax in England and Wales in the spring of 1990 led to a riot in the West End of London, followed by an orchestrated campaign of nonpayment. After the replacement of Mrs Thatcher as prime minister, later in 1990, the Conservative administration spent large sums of money in softening the impact of the tax and replaced it as soon as possible (in 1993) with a new *council tax.
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Meanwhile councils had been left with the massively expensive task of attempting to collect the poll tax from defaulters (liability orders were served on 2.8 million people for the 1991–2 tax year), and there was some evidence that the tax had affected the 1992 general election by deterring a significant number of potential voters from declaring themselves on the electoral register.
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