Poll tax (Great Britain)

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The Community Charge, colloquially known as the poll tax, was a system of local taxation introduced by Margaret Thatcher's government, whereby each taxpayer was taxed the same fixed sum (a "poll tax" or "head tax"), with the precise amount being set by each local authority. Enabled by the passage of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, the Charge replaced domestic rates in Scotland from 1989, and from 1990, it was similarly introduced into England and Wales. The repeal of the poll tax was announced in 1991, and in 1993, the current system of the Council Tax was instated. Since the 1970s, the Conservative Party under Thatcher aimed to do away with the domestic rating system, which funded local government by levying taxes based on property valuation. By the 1980s, the system had become a significant point of friction between several Labour-controlled local councils and Thatcher's government, the latter of whom sought to limit the taxation and spending powers of the former via the Rates...

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