Poll tax


 
 

A poll tax, head tax, or capitation is a tax of a uniform, fixed amount per individual (as opposed to a percentage of income). Such taxes were important sources of revenue for many countries into the 19th century, but this is no longer the case. There are several famous cases of poll taxes in history, notably a tax formerly required for voting in parts of the United States that was often designed to disenfranchise African Americans, Native Americans, and whites of non-British descent, as well as two taxes levied by John of Gaunt and Margaret Thatcher in the fourteenth and twentieth centuries respectively.

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The word poll is an English word that once meant "head", hence the name poll tax for a per-person tax. However, in the United States, the term has come to be used almost exclusively for a fixed tax applied to voting. Since "going to the polls" is a common idiom for voting (deriving, of course, from the fact that early voting involved head-counts), a new folk etymology has supplanted any knowledge of the phrase's true origins in America.

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The jizya is a poll tax that, according to Islamic law, Islamic states must take from adult non-Muslim males.

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Tax: A tax is a compulsory charge or other levy imposed on an individual or a legal entity by a state or a functional equivalent of a state (e.g., tribes, secessionist movements or revolutionary movements). Taxes could also be imposed by a subnational entity....

Disenfranchise: redirect disfranchisement...

African American: African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans, Black Americans, or simply blacks are an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to West and Central Africa. Many African Americans have European and/or Native American ancestry as well....


Poll tax related Images and Photos (experimental)

Wat Tyler Attacks the Poll-Tax Collector
Wat Tyler Attacks the Poll-Tax Collector
The Tax Collector
The Tax Collector
Two Tax Gatherers  c.1540
Two Tax Gatherers c.1540
At the Tax Collector's
At the Tax Collector's
The Tax Collector  1543
The Tax Collector 1543
Snip And Snap And the Poll Parrot
Snip And Snap And the Poll Parrot
Suppliant Peasants in the Office of Two Tax Collectors
Suppliant Peasants in the Office of Two Tax Collectors
Provost of Merchants and Aldermen of Paris  Scene of Tax Collection
Provost of Merchants and Aldermen of Paris Scene of Tax Collection

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Introduction
United States
United Kingdom
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~ Related Subjects ~

United States (2) - Revolutionary (1) - Secessionist (1) - State (1) - Tribe (1) - Central Africa (1) - Native American (1) - West (1) - Subnational entity (1) - Ethnic group (1) - Legal entity (1) - African American (1) - John of Gaunt (1) - Tax (1) - Disenfranchise (1) -
 

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