Talk:Poll tax

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[edit] "Ethical basis"

"As Abraham Lincoln said, 'As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master'. This moral position is also expressed clearly by Ayn Rand."

Strictly true, but the context in which this sentence has been used could easily be interpreted as meaning that Ayn Rand would have approved of the Poll Tax. In fact, Rand was morally opposed to all forms of involuntary taxation, regardless of whether one receives services directly in return for payment. --DudeGalea 11:46, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

The above comments refer to the following paragraph (since deleted) from the article:

The ethical basis for the Poll Tax is that members of society should pay for the goods and services that they consume from that society. No-one should be forced to pay for what they do not consume, and no-one should consume what they do not pay for. As Abraham Lincoln said, 'As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master'. This moral position is also expressed clearly by Ayn Rand. A Poll Tax covers the costs of basic services such as public transport, education and policing, which are assumed to be consumed roughly equally by all members of society, regardless of their wealth or earning power, so levies equal charges on its members for these services.

[edit] Services received vs services provided

Para 2 of United Kingdom says "This charged each person for the services they received in their community." Should this not read "This charged each person for the services provided in their community." Local authorities provide, eg, child-care which is funded by the childless, etc. Sbz5809 11:59, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Fixed. Does anyone else think this should be split into two pages - one for poll taxes in general, and another for the Community Charge aka Poll Tax. Morwen - Talk 09:02, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Poll Tax

Changed an erroneous sentance, Margaret Thatcher did not reign.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.13.135.213 (talk) 14:53, 16 April 2006

She probably liked to think she did! hedpeguyuk 13:06 11 June 2006 (UTC) False sig struck out by Jerzy•t 19:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hedpeguyuk (talk • contribs) 11:59, 11 June 2006

[edit] Poll tax in USA

[edit] In traditional (non-US) sense

"The capitation clause of Article I of the United States Constitution, requiring apportionment among the states of "direct taxes", makes imposition of a poll tax by the federal government unfeasible."

Wasn't this changed by the 16th amendment, which made individual (income) taxes legal?

Salvor Hardin 00:51, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

The above signed contrib was interrupted by the following contrib by another editor:
Note: above language was added on 2004-12-18 08:26:20 by Ellsworth Poll tax oldid=8605502.
--Jdlh | Talk 06:53, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Besides being mildly confusing, it is (only) technically a forgery, by virtue of the combination of signature and interruption. I have moved the interrupting contrib to here.
--Jerzy•t 19:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
JD is referring to the time at which the quoted text was added to the accompanying article.
--Jerzy•t 19:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing this out. In fact, I think the original statement is incorrect; a poll tax was one of the few kinds of taxes clearly permitted by the capitation clause. 'Capitation' is another word for poll tax US Department of State on US Constitution. There is a related debate in the history of taxation in the United States about whether the capitation clause permitted an income tax. The Sixteenth Amendment was supposed to settle that. What I think is more relevant is that a) where the US federal government imposed a capitation, it didn't block participation in elections, and b) the US federal government doesn't run elections for its offices, the states run elections for federal offices. I think point b) really needs to be reflected in this paragraph about the Federal government and poll taxes. --Jdlh | Talk 06:53, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Salvor Hardin, I rewrote the United States section extensively. See if this addresses your concerns about factual accuracy. If you're satisfied, please remove the tag. --Jdlh | Talk 08:08, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Georgia and voter-ID fee

An anonymous contributer added this sentence to the United States section of the article:

Georgia is currently accused of bringing back the use of a poll tax in this New York Times Article.

This sentence as it is a little awkward and possibly POV. Some research needs to be done on this topic and an appropriate paragraph inserted into the article. — Mateo SA | talk 00:54, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Actualy, it is better off not being in this article at all because otherwise lots of flat fees that are paid by a much higher percentage of the population than state id non driving would have to be listed, including the normal drivers license. Jon 14:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] whites of non british descent?

Is that factually accurate? Germans, French, and Scandinavian countries where not always looked down upon. Didnt they try to just disqualify poor whites? I dont know if it had anything to do with non british - Also considering how could one make the distinction between a british and a non british white in generally assiliamble society? Should it be changed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.132.15.213 (talk) 03:55, 14 February 2006

Yes, it needs changed. Race was not explictly part of the grandfather clause, instead a year was chosen prior to the abolition of slavery which had the effect of keeping poor blacks and also poor whites who immigrated after that date from voting. Jon 14:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Should taxes on right to vote be disambiguated out?

IMO, the inclusion of the former "poll taxes" in the American South as instances of head taxes is a tortured treatment of the phrase: the general American understanding of "poll tax" as meaning "voting tax" (i remember being shocked at Thatcher's apparent -- to me and i think virtually all Yanks -- "tone-deafness" in naming her head tax!) no longer amounts to a misunderstanding by Americans, but to a difference in usage. (If it is a false supposition that "poll" meant "voting place" to Americans when they adopted that usage, then it is indeed a folk etymology, but that is another issue.) Neither of the refs in Poll tax#Tax on voting contradicts the main body of the first relevant non-WP Google hit on "poll tax", which supports my life-long understanding that poll taxes were never a noticeable revenue source in the South, bcz no efforts were made to collect it, nor was anyone punished for its non-payment -- except blacks on election day.
It would be correct (at least technically) to have a ToP Dab (hatnote) reading something like

This is about creating government revenue with head taxes. For restricting the right to vote to those paying a particular tax, see Poll tax (voting).

It could (tho i doubt it) make more sense to keep both concepts in this one accompanying article (and in any case the two topics should be interlink'd by more than Dab-support mechanisms), but at the very least the current lead-sent misstates the current scope of the that article's topic.
I'll probably effect a split before long, in the absence of contrary arguments or pertinent refs cited in this talk-page section.
--Jerzy•t 19:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] New Zealand head tax

I oppose any merger of New Zealand head tax to here. It is appropriate for this article to link to and summarise the New Zealand article, but there's enough material in the New Zealand article to warrant it being stand-alone.-gadfium 19:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It's been three months since the merge tag was placed on this article, and I'm the only one who commented on it. I've removed the tag.-gadfium 08:37, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UK poll tax

Shouldn't we split out Community Charge as a separate article? It was a major event in British politics and it seems odd there is no independent article about it. Morwen - Talk 14:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we really should... Shimgray | talk | 14:15, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
...done. Community Charge. Shimgray | talk | 14:30, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative meaning for "capitation"

Wikipedians:

I came this way by searching on the term "capitation" and was redirected to "Poll tax" without first going through a disambiguation page. In the USA, "capitation" is a also concept in healthcare, aside from and independent of any poll tax issue. Physicians are "capitated" under certain managed care arrangements in which they receive a set amount of money per patient per unit time (e.g. $50 per patient per month) as compensation for taking that patient under their care. This money is paid whether or not the patient needs care during that time period (and the physician assumes some risk when the patient does). This is a reimbursement cost control and risk-shifting approach commonly taken by Health Maintenance Organizations. Capitation is an alternative to "fee for service" arrangements. Maybe we need a disambiguation page. Any takers?

Cheers,

Lycophron

[edit] Community Charge

..."apparently chose to be both ruthless in imposing it and adamant that there would be no "U-turns" (reversals in policy)." This is egregious bias. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.241.27.173 (talk) 17:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

Anonymous editor 80.7.148.117 added a few paragraphs on 00:28, March 21, 2007 which for me took the section beyond my comfort for unsourced statements. I tagged the entire Community Charge section as "Unreferenced". There's only one reference cited in 16 paragraphs. I also deleted some text and fixed some spelling mistakes. --Jdlh | Talk 20:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I deleted this text: "Students and UB40s only pay 20%, so for any given property what should be the income. Even with a successful collection it is uneconomic to chase a 20%er." because it's difficult to understand (what's a UB40? 20% of what?) and poorly written (different tense from rest of paragraph). --Jdlh | Talk 20:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I deleted the modifier "immensely popular" in the paragraph about it being a voluntary tax. I guess this was intended as a sarcastic comment, but it's not clear. --Jdlh | Talk 20:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

"The initial register was wildly apocryphal. It was based on the rates register for "owned" houses with lots of other dodgy data such as housing benefit recipients. So in a university town the data was very dirty, and needed extensive cleaning and maintenance."

This paragraph doesn't read very encyclopedically - I don't know enough about the issue to fix it Kisch 04:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Groat

Not sure what the actual amount payable was but the 14th century tax section says "groat (2p)". A groat was 4p or more correctly, 4d. Stutley 13:28, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

4d = 4/2.4 = 1.7p, so it's correct to the nearest penny. Duncan Keith 05:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How high was the Poll Tax in UK?

Does anybody have a quote how high the Poll Tax in the UK was? How much had someone to pay per year? Ccwelt 17:53, 11 October 2007 (UTC)