A poll tax (head tax or capitation tax, per U.S. English usage) is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census (as opposed to a percentage of income). When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax (and vice versa, if a poll tax obligation can be worked off). Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments from ancient times until the 19th century. There have been several famous (and infamous) cases of head taxes in history, notably a tax formerly required for voting in parts of the United States that was often designed to disenfranchise poor people, including African Americans, Native Americans, and white people of non-English descent (e.g., the Irish). In the United Kingdom, poll taxes were levied by the governments of John of Gaunt in the 14th C., Charles II in the 17th and Margaret Thatcher in the 20th century.
The word poll is an English word that once meant "head" - and still does, in some specialised contexts - hence the name poll tax for a per-person tax. In the United States, however, 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 from the fact that early voting involved head-counts), a new folk etymology has supplanted common knowledge of the phrase's true origins in America.
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As prescribed in Exodus (30: 11-16),[1] Jewish law imposed a poll tax of half-shekel, payable by every man above the age of twenty ("rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less"), designated for the upkeep of the Temple of Jerusalem. Priests, women, slaves and minors were exempted, although they can offer it voluntarily. Payment by Samaritans or Gentiles was rejected. It was collected yearly during the month of Adar, both at the Temple and at special collection bureaus in the provinces.
The ancient Romans imposed a tributum capitis (poll tax) as one of the principal direct taxes on the peoples of the Roman provinces (Digest 50, tit.15). In the Republican period, poll taxes were principally collected by private tax farmers (publicani), but from the time of Emperor Augustus, the collection were gradually transferred to magistrates and the senates of provincial cities. The Roman census was conducted periodically in the provinces to draw up and update the poll tax register.
The Roman poll tax fell principally on Roman subjects in the provinces, but not on Roman citizens. Towns in the provinces who possessed the Jus Italicum (enjoying the "privileges of Italy") were exempted from the poll tax. The 212 edict of Emperor Caracalla which formally conferred Roman citizenship on all residents of Roman provinces, did not however exempt them from the poll tax.
The Roman poll tax was deeply resented - Tertullian bewailed the poll tax as a "badge of slavery" - and it provoked numerous revolts in the provinces. Perhaps most famous is the Zealot revolt in Judaea of 66 CE. After the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, the Emperor imposed an extra poll tax on Jews throughout the empire, the fiscus judaicus, of two denari each.
The Italian revolt of the 720s, organized and led by Pope Gregory II, was originally provoked by the attempt of the Constantinople Emperor Leo III the Isaurian to introduce a poll tax in the Italian provinces of the Byzantine Empire in 722, and set in motion the permanent separation of Italy from the Byzantine empire. When King Aistulf of the Lombards availed himself of the Italian dissent and invaded the Exarchate of Ravenna in 751, one of his first acts was to institute a crushing poll tax of one gold solidus per head on every Roman citizen. Seeking relief from this burden, Pope Stephen II appealed to the Pepin the Short of the Franks for assistance, that led to the establishment of the Papal States in 756.
Jizya is a poll tax imposed under Islamic law on non-Muslims - specifically, the dhimmi ("People of the Book", i.e. Jews and Christians). The tax is levied on free-born abled-bodied men of military age. The poor are exempt, as well as those who were not independent or wealthy who were slaves, women, children, the old, the sick, monks, or hermits.
There are several legal rationales for the jizya (and its equivalent land tax, the kharaj). The common argument is that jizya was a fee in exchange for the dhimma (permission to practice one's faith, enjoy communal autonomy, and to be entitled to Muslim protection from outside aggression). Some scholars emphasize that its higher rate is also a sign of submission and acceptance of Muslim rule, and some argue humiliation for failing to embrace Islam. Other rationales assume such rights were every person's birthright (Muslim or non-Muslim), and the imposition of jizya on non-Muslims similar to the imposition of zakat (one of the Five Pillars of Islam, an obligatory wealth tax paid on certain assets which are not used productively for a period of a year) on Muslims. The rates of jizya are higher (often quite higher) than zakat.
Although jizya is designated as a poll tax, its assessment and collection is often qualified by income. For instance, Amr ibn al-As, after conquering Egypt, set up a census to measure the population for the jizya, and thus the total expected jizya revenue for the whole province, but organized the actual collection by partitioning the population into wealth classes, so that the rich paid more and the poor less jizya of that total sum. Elsewhere, it is reported customary to partition into three classes, e.g. 48 dirhams for the rich, 24 for middle class and 12 for the poor.[2]
The differing tax rates between zakat and jizya gave an incentive for populations to convert to Islam, to benefit from the lower tax rates. However, this was not always respected by the governing authorities, who were reluctant to lose the cash revenues. In the late 7th and early 8th C., during the Umayyad Caliphate, conversions were often ignored and jizya continued being collected on Muslim converts, particularly if they were non-Arabs (e.g. Berbers, Persians), raising tensions throughout the caliphate. In 718, the Umayyad caliph Umar II strictly forbade collection of jizya from Muslim converts. However, after his death, difficulties in the caliphal treasury prompted governors to side-step the prohibitions and surreptitiously re-introduce jizya-collection on converts by other guises. The zeal of the Umayyad tax-collectors led to the eruption of two notable revolts in the 740s - the Berber Revolt in North Africa and Spain and the Abbasid Revolt in Persia - demanding the equality of all Muslims, regardless of ethnicity, and adherence to the tax rates prescribed by Islamic law.
In 1855, the Ottoman Empire abolished the jizya tax, as part of reforms to equalize the status of Muslims and non-Muslims. It was replaced, however, by a military-exemption tax on non-Muslims, the Bedel-i Askeri, which is perhaps the same thing.
The poll tax was essentially a lay subsidy (a tax on the movable property of most of the population) to help fund war. It had first been levied in 1275 and continued, under different names, until the 17th century. People were taxed a percentage of the assessed value of their movable goods. That percentage varied from year to year and place to place, and which goods could be taxed differed between urban and rural locations. Churchmen were exempt, as were the poor, workers in the Royal Mint, inhabitants of the Cinque Ports, tin workers in Cornwall and Devon, and those who lived in the Palatinate counties of Cheshire and Durham.
The Hilary Parliament, held between January and March 1377, levied a poll tax in 1377 to finance the war against France at the request of John of Gaunt who, as King Edward III was mortally sick, was the de facto head of government at the time. This tax covered almost 60% of the population, far more than lay subsidies had earlier. It was levied three times, in 1377, 1379 and 1381. Each time the basis was slightly different. In 1377, every lay person over the age of 14 years who was not a beggar had to pay a groat (4d) to the Crown. By 1379 that had been graded by social class, with the lower age limit changed to 16, and to 15 two years later. The levy in 1381 was particularly unpopular, as each person aged over 15 was required to pay the amount of one shilling, which was then a large amount. This played a role in provoking the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, due in part to attempts to restore feudal conditions in rural areas.
The poll tax was resurrected during the 17th C., usually related to a military emergency. It was imposed by Charles I in 1641 to finance the raising of the army against the Scottish and Irish uprisings. With the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the Convention Parliament of 1660 instituted a poll tax to finance the disbanding of the New Model Army (pay arrears, etc.) (12 Charles II c.9).[3] The poll tax was assessed according to "rank", e.g. dukes paid £100, earls £60, knights £20, esquires £10. Eldest sons paid 2/3rds of their father's rank, widows paid a third of their late husband's rank. The members of the livery companies paid according to company's rank (e.g. masters of first-tier guilds like the Mercers paid £10, whereas masters of fifth-tier guilds, like the Clerks, paid 5 shillings). Professionals also paid differing rates, e.g. physicians (£10), judges (£20), advocates (£5), attorneys (£3), and so on. Anyone with property (land, etc.) paid 40 shillings per £100 earned, anyone over the age of 16 and unmarried paid 12-pence and everyone else over 16 paid 6-pence.
The poll tax was imposed again by William and Mary in 1689 (1 Will. & Mar. c.13), reassessed in 1690 adjusting rank for fortune, and then again in 1691 back to rank irrespective of fortune. The poll tax was imposed again in 1692, and one final time in 1698 (the last poll tax until the 20th C.). A poll tax was imposed on Scotland between 1694 and 1699.
As the greater weight of the 17th C. poll taxes fell primarily upon the wealthy and powerful, it was not too unpopular. There were grumblings within the taxed ranks about lack of differentiation by income within ranks. Ultimately, it was the inefficiency of their collection - what they brought in routinely fell far short of expected revenues - that prompted the government to abandon the poll tax after 1698.
Far more controversial was the hearth tax introduced in 1662 (13 & 14 Charles II c.10), which imposed a hefty two shillings on every hearth in a family dwelling (which was easier to count than persons). Heavier, more permanent and more regressive than the poll tax proper, the intrusive entry of tax inspectors into private homes to count hearths was a very sore point, and it was promptly repealed with the Glorious Revolution in 1689. It was replaced with a "window tax" in 1695 (inspectors could count windows from outside of homes).
The Community Charge was a poll tax to fund local government in the United Kingdom, instituted in 1989 by the government of Margaret Thatcher. It replaced the rates that were based on the notional rental value of a house. The abolition of rates was in the manifesto of Thatcher's Conservative Party in the 1979 general election, and the replacement was proposed in the Green Paper of 1986, Paying for Local Government based on ideas developed by Dr Madsen Pirie and Douglas Mason of the Adam Smith Institute. It was a fixed tax per adult resident, but there was a reduction for those with lower household income. Each person was to pay for the services provided in their community. This proposal was contained in the Conservative Manifesto for the 1987 General Election. The new tax replaced the rates in Scotland from the start of the 1989/90 financial year, and in England and Wales from the start of the 1990/91 financial year.
The system was deeply unpopular. It seemed to shift the tax burden from rich to poor, as it was based on the number of people living in a house rather than its estimated price. Many tax rates set by local councils proved to be much higher than earlier predictions, leading to resentment even among people who had supported it. The tax in different boroughs differed dramatically because local taxes paid by businesses varied and grants by central government to local authorities sometimes varied capriciously.
Mass protests were called by the All-Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation, with which the vast majority of local Anti Poll Tax Unions (APTUs) were affiliated. In Scotland the APTUs called for mass non-payment and these calls rapidly gathered widespread support which spread to England and Wales, even though non-payment meant that people could be prosecuted. In some areas, 30% of former ratepayers defaulted. While owner-occupiers were easy to tax, those who regularly changed accommodation were almost impossible to pursue if they chose not to pay. The cost of collecting the tax rose steeply while the returns from it fell. Enforcement measures became increasingly draconian, and unrest grew and culminated in a number of Poll Tax Riots. The most serious was in a protest at Trafalgar Square, London, on 31 March 1990, of more than 200,000 protesters. A Labour MP, Terry Fields, was jailed for 60 days for refusing to pay his poll tax.
This unrest was instrumental in toppling Margaret Thatcher in 1990. Her replacement, John Major, replaced the Community Charge with the Council Tax, similar to the rating system that preceded the Poll Tax. The main differences were that it was levied on capital value rather than notional rental value of a property, and that it had a 25% discount for single-occupancy dwellings.
In France, a poll tax, the capitation, was first imposed by King Louis XIV in 1695 as a temporary measure to finance the War of the League of Augsburg, and thus repealed in 1699. It was resumed during the War of Spanish Succession and in 1704 set on a permanent basis, remaining until the end of the Ancien regime.
Like the English poll tax, the French capitation tax was assessed on rank – for taxation persons, French society was divided in twenty-two "classes", with the Dauphin (a class by himself) paying 2,000 livres, princes of the blood paying 1500 livres, and so on down to the lowest class, composed of day laborers and servants, who paid 1 livre each. The bulk of the common population was covered by four classes, paying 40, 30, 10 and 3 livres respectively. Unlike most other direct French taxes, nobles and clergy were not exempted from capitation taxes. It did, however, exempt the mendicant orders and the poor who contributed less than 40 sous.
At the time of its design, the capitation tax was probably the most equitable tax in France. This was soon gnawed away. The French clergy managed to temporarily escape capitation assessment by promising to pay a total sum of 4 million livres per annum in 1695, and then obtained permanent exemption in 1709 with a lump sum payment of 24 million livres. The Pays d'états (Brittany, Burgundy, etc.) and many towns also escaped assessment by promising annual fixed payments. The nobles did not escape assessment, but they obtained the right to appoint their own capitation tax assessors, which allowed them to escape most of the burden (in one calculation, they escaped ⅞ of it). So it not long before it was only the routiers (peasants) who paid the capitation tax.
Compounding the burden, the assessment on the capitation did not remain stable. The pays de taille personelle (basically, Pays d'élection, the bulk of France and Aquitaine) secured the ability to assess the capitation tax proportionally to the taille - which effectively meant adjusting the burden heavily against the lower classes. According to the estimates of Jacques Necker in 1788, the capitation tax was so riddled in practice, that the privileged classes (nobles and clergy and towns) were largely exempt, while the lower classes were heavily crushed: the lowest peasant class, originally assessed to pay 3 livres, were now paying 24, the second lowest, assessed at 10 livres, were now paying 60 and the third-lowest assessed at 30 were paying 180. The total collection from the capitation, according to Necker in 1788, was 41 million livres, well short of the 54 million estimate, and it was projected that the revenues could have doubled if the exemptions were revoked and the original 1695 assessment properly restored.
The old capitation tax was repealed with the French Revolution and replaced, in November 23, 1790, with a new poll tax as part of the contribution personnelle mobilière, which lasted well into the late 19th Century. It was fixed for every individual at "three days's labor" (assessed locally, but by statute, no less than 1 franc 50 centimes and no more than 4 francs 50 centimes, depending on the area). A dwelling tax (impôt sur les portes et fenêtres, similar to the English window-tax) was imposed in 1791.
A poll tax (in the sense of capitation) plays a significant role in the history of taxation in the United States and the adoption of income tax as a significant source of government funding. The second meaning of poll tax, namely a tax to be paid as a prerequisite to voting, is more widely known in the United States today. The term was widely used in the South after the turn of the 20th century in combination with other measures to bar blacks and poor whites from voter registration and voting.
Recent debate has arisen about whether requiring citizens to purchase a state identification card acts as a poll tax and bars poor voters from voting.[4] To reduce cost, some state offer free identification cards for those who can demonstrate the need. However, significant additional costs can be incurred when acquiring a "free" ID. In addition to travel cost or potential lost wages, a certified copy of a birth certificate costs from $10 to $45 depending on the state, a passport costs $85 and certified naturalization papers cost $19.95. Further, about 12 percent of voting-age Americans currently lack a driver's license.[5]
The capitation clause of Article I of the United States Constitution, reads "[n]o capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken." Capitation here means a tax of a uniform, fixed amount per taxpayer.[6] Direct tax means a tax levied directly by the United States federal government on taxpayers, as opposed to a tax on events or transactions.[7] The United States government levied direct taxes from time to time during the 18th and early 19th centuries. It levied direct taxes on the owners of houses, land, slaves, and estates in the late 1790s but cancelled the taxes in 1802.
An income tax is neither a poll tax nor a capitation, as the amount of tax will vary from person to person, depending on each person's income. Until a United States Supreme Court decision in 1895, all income taxes were deemed to be excises (i.e. indirect taxes). The Revenue Act of 1861 established the first income tax in the United States, to pay for the cost of the American Civil War. This income tax was abolished after the war, in 1872. Another income tax statute in 1894 was overturned in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. in 1895, where the Supreme Court held that income taxes on income from property, such as rent income, interest income, and dividend income (but not income taxes on income from wages, employment, etc.) were to be treated as direct taxes. Because the statute in question had not apportioned income taxes on income from property by population, the statute was ruled unconstitutional. Finally, ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913 made possible modern income taxes, by removing the requirement of apportionment with respect to income taxes.[7]
The Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 stipulated that all Chinese entering Canada would be subjected to a head tax of $50. The act was mostly to discourage the lower class Chinese from entering, since Canada still welcomed the rich Chinese merchants who could afford the head tax. After the Government of Canada realized that the $50 fee did not effectively eliminate Chinese from entering Canada, the government passed the Chinese Immigration Act of 1900 and 1903, increasing the tax to $100 and $500, respectively. In 1923, the government passed Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 which prohibited all Chinese from immigrating to Canada.
On 22 June 2006, the Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper delivered a message of redress for a head tax once applied to Chinese immigrants.[8] Survivors or their spouses will receive $20,000 CAD compensation.[8]
The numbers of the Chinese immigration went from 20,000 a year to 8 people after the government-imposed "head tax". New Zealand imposed a poll tax on Chinese immigrants during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The poll tax was effectively lifted in the 1930s following the invasion of China by Japan, and was finally repealed in 1944. Prime Minister Helen Clark offered New Zealand's Chinese community an official apology for the poll tax on 12 February 2002.[9]