Talk:Poll tax (Great Britain)

Is this a wikipedically acceptable term ??

(My CAPS) "although there was a reduction for POOR PEOPLE". Perhaps 'those suffering financial hardship' or 'the financially vulnerable' ? But "poor people" ? It sounds Dickensian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.30.143.192 (talk) 13:34, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Rate or Amount

The article says a "flat RATE", which in the context of taxation would mean a equal PERCENTAGE (e.g. every person owes 10% of their income), what is generally known as a flat income tax, but from what I've heard the Community Charge was a DOLLAR AMOUNT regardless of income. If that is true, shouldn't it be a HEAD TAX rather than a flat rate tax? Ahfretheim (talk) 18:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

It's been sitting like that for 9 years lmao but I've now corrected it Transient Being (talk) 19:45, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Riot

The Maggie Thatcher page states over 100,000 present at the Trafalgar Square Riot, yet here it says 200,000. Which is correct? Onkeh (talk) 05:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

20%

The page states

However if someone in the household had a job all of the household was liable for 100%.

From what I remember of the poll tax this is not correct... If I recall correctly, full-time students were only ever liable for a 20% charge, regardless of the status of other members of the household.

It was the Community Charge's replacement, the Council Tax, which introduced this piece of lunacy... if everyone in the household was a student the entire household was exempt and no-one paid anything. But if there was a single non-student, the CT was payable on the entire property... and all residents, including students, could be held jointly liable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TomH (talk • contribs) 19:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I've fact tagged it. True, the statement doesn't seem to fit with the Community Charge being a "poll" tax levied on individuals regardless of their (or other family members) wages, and every individual in a household being send their own bill. Meowy 16:48, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

You are incorrect that if there if there are multiple residents including a single non-student that Council Tax is payable to the full amount equally by all residents. In fact the non-student is responsible for the full amount(Although they would qualify for "Single Person Discount"). http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/academicoffice/studentrecords/studentscounciltaxbooklet.pdf Graemec2 (talk) 15:39, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

ISTR there was a change in the rules on this and it used to be the case that the whole household were liable.

How did the Community Charge handle students' multiple addresses? Did they have to pay at every single one? Timrollpickering (talk) 20:07, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Scotland

why is there no mention of the controversy caused by the introduction of the tax to Scotland first either here or on thatchers page or the fact that to this day many scots will still not vote conservative because of the fact it was introduced here first 78.144.113.244 (talk) 23:46, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

As a Scot - its probably not included because the vast majority of Scots don't understand what the poll-tax was ergo its non-fact but an emotional basis that is borderling weather it should be included or not. The reasoning (can't link as it was on a BBC documentary) was due to the idea that Westminster was ignoring Scotland - and if the poll tax was introduced early it would a)help the Scottish economy faster - therefore b) show scots that Westminster still cared about Scotland. How that backfired! However - If it were to be included, should the fact that the vast majority of young Scots don't even realise it was introduced in England as well be mentioned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.49.62.34 (talk) 12:21, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Not sure why the controversy isn't mentioned as it is still a major bone of contention in the politics of the UK. Article 18 of the Act of Union basically states that no tax should be imposed in one Country and not the other. Thatcher ignored this and told demonstrators to "grow up" - when it was introduced in England, there were mass riots. http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/25/world/parliament-in-the-1980-s-naughty-and-not-nice.html http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/10/world/violent-anger-rises-in-britain-as-date-for-poll-tax-nears.html

————

Scotland needs callout as it was the first place rolled out, did help create that impression that Scotland was a place where Thatcher -already reviled, could experiment. Someone will need to find citeable references rather than anecdotes.

There's a 2016 BBC article where Malcom Rifkind MP stated in April 2019 that "The implementation of the new arrangements was proceeding smoothly, and the issue had almost completely disappeared from the press".This is a good start

I've uploaded my 1990 demand for non payment. There don't seem to be any other examples online

1990 poll tax demand

SteveLoughran (talk) 21:37, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

References

Effects on voter registration

I don't see any reference on why the tax wax called a "poll tax", i.e. how it was a precondition to vote. One possible explanation is the following:

"Introduced to Scotland in 1989 and in the rest of Britain in 1990, the tax obliged councils to impose a flat charge on every adult, regardless of income. Many councils used the electoral roll to build their lists and as a result many people avoided the tax by failing to re-register as voters. MORI estimated that up to 5 per cent of eligible voters did not register to avoid the tax." (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/poll-tax-dodgers-return-for-their-chance-to-vote-1329618.html)

It would be good if someone with better knowledge of the UK electoral system could include that in the article. (Me, I'm geman and rather ingnorant on that subject...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.149.95.223 (talk) 09:40, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

There was never a formal link between voting and paying the community charge. "Poll" is an old English word meaning "head" and the idea of a "poll tax", which goes back centuries, is a tax per head and opponents of the CC used this term to reinforce their attacks on it. "Poll" is used in the electoral context because traditionally voting was a counting of heads but the first poll taxes were never linked to voting.

(I take that article with a pinch of salt because it has some basic errors such as referring to "the card which is required to cast a vote". No card is required to cast a vote - the card in question is the information sent to every individual registered elector informing them that a) an election is taking place and b) details of where and when to vote. Whilst many people take the card to the polling station and it helps speed up the process all round, it's not a prerequisite.)

The main connection between the CC and the electoral register was that some councils used the register as their basis for compiling a list of all people eligible to pay the tax. There was (and still is) no official register of all people living at all addresses that is accessible for such purposes and often the electoral register is the next best thing and so gets used for non-electoral purposes with problematic consequences. (Another one is that some banks and other financial services will use the register as part of their checks against fraud. But many people who rent and regularly move will have their bank account tied to a more permanent postal address - for a lot of young people this is often their parents'. So they end up registered more than once because of this.) There may have been claims at the time that taking one's self off the register would remove the obligation to pay the tax; legally this was wrong but as the article says the administration of the tax was poor and many could hope that such evasion would work. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:31, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Name of the predecessor?

I can't read from the article what the predecessor to the Community Charge was called. Thanks, Maikel (talk) 18:54, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

It was knows as the Rating System) Graemec2 (talk) 15:45, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Why implemented?

While this article covers the various problems with the tax, it doesn't explain why the Conservatives thought it was a better system than the council tax system before it. 180.150.113.72 (talk) 12:13, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Surely it was the rates that were before it - the council tax came after it. Vorbee (talk) 15:21, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. This RM has already been relisted once, and there still does not appear to be a clear consensus to move the page. (non-admin closure) Biblioworm 00:48, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

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Community Charge → Poll tax (United Kingdom) – WP:COMMONNAME is the basic reason for this move – "Community Charge" was the official name, but I was very surprised to see the article was not at "poll tax", given that is what it is almost exclusively known as in common parlance (hence the names of things like Poll Tax Riots, All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation, Anti-Poll Tax Unions at the time; for contemporary usage, compare BBC hits - 3,850 for poll tax and 547 for Community Charge). I did move this article a few weeks ago as I thought it was a fairly obvious move, but was disappointed to see it was moved back. --Relisted. Dekimasuよ! 23:43, 8 November 2014 (UTC) Number 57 20:27, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

• Support until recently, poll tax was the only name I knew this subject by. That's just anecdotal though, and not an actual good reason for a move. However, User:Number 57's points make it incredibly clear that the proposed title is the overwhelmingly common name, both in the time period the tax existed as well as today.--Yaksar (let's chat) 00:17, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. Thatcher's Community Charge is undoubtedly known as just "the Poll Tax", because that's what its opponents called it, and they eventually won the day. My only problem with the proposed title is that does not make it clear whether the article would contain coverage of only the Thatcherite poll tax, a survey of historical poll taxes in the United Kingdom (and perhaps its predecessors), or a basic summary of what "poll tax" means in UK usage. That last is sorely needed somewhere; the present main article, found at tax per head, is a mess of confusion and synthesis that may well yet get moved to poll tax. If I can't tell the scope now, future readers may not be able to either. Community Charge at least has the advantages of being official and specific, even if it's arguably not the common name for this tax. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 03:00, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

• Ah, that's actually a fair point. Is there another disambiguation we might consider so that we could still use the most common name?--Yaksar (let's chat) 03:06, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I can't think of one that isn't needlessly unwieldy; something like 1989 United Kingdom poll tax is not an improvement on either of the proposed titles, and you would need something like that if you wanted to make the current scope clear. I'm all for using common names over official ones, but official names are better than unclear titles, or needlessly verbose ones. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 04:09, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

The other poll taxes existed before the UK did (the last one was levied in 1698, over 100 years before the UK came into being – see Tax per head#England and Scotland), so "Poll tax (United Kingdom)" should suffice in terms of disambiguation for this one. The others could be called Poll tax (England) and Poll tax (Scotland), and a hatnote could be placed on this one. Number 57 12:40, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I won't pretend to be an expert on the complete list of poll taxes in Britain, so if others think that splitting by country is fine, I'll accept that. The problem is that that still leaves no room for an article about the general meaning of "poll tax" in the British isles as opposed to elsewhere where it has a slightly different meaning. If tax per head were in better shape, I wouldn't mind directing the readers there, but it is currently both very incomplete (doesn't cover many historically significant per capita taxes in non-english-speaking countries) and full of synthesis (because it tries to equate taxes with different moral purposes that happened to share a name). I still think the present name is better, but as I said at the start, my opposition is pretty weak. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 21:24, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

That's a good enough explanation for me, I'm willing to confirm my support.--Yaksar (let's chat) 23:50, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. The recent discussion at Talk:Tax per head suggests to me that the proposed title might be misleading. It's about a specific example of a poll tax, but some are under the impression that different countries mean different things by "poll tax" and the proposed move only feeds that misconception. Srnec (talk) 20:21, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't see how the name something was best known by can misleading, particularly if it has a disambiguator. Number 57 20:46, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
    • As the anonymous user points out, the disambiguator is insufficient and alternatives are not improvements on the current title. The proposed title makes it look like this article is about poll taxes in the UK, like VAT or income taxes in the UK. In reality, it is about a specific tax implemented for a short time. Srnec (talk) 02:32, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
      • Srnec, I think there are three things to consider here:
        1. As I pointed out to the IP, there has only been one poll tax during the existence of the UK. I can't see how the proposed title is ambiguous
        2. I can't see how an article title in the singular format could infer that the article is about multiple types of tax (and it will be clear from the content that it's not, especially if there is a hatnote referring to taxes in the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland
        3. Most importantly, even if there had been other poll taxes during the existence of the UK, this is very clearly the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. In fact it's quite arguable that the UK poll tax is the primary topic for the all Poll taxes - a Google search shows the UK poll tax occupying 17 of the first 20 hits), but I think a UK disambiguator is ok. Number 57 11:14, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
  • In that discussion, the issue was that the term in the US has evolved to have a different meaning entirely despite common roots. Here there is not that issue.--Yaksar (let's chat) 17:11, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
    • You're wrong about that Yaksar. How many times does it need to be said? Srnec (talk) 22:50, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
• Support per WP:COMMONNAME Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 13:20, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose current title is correct and neutral and does not need disambiguation, using a name used by those that opposed it (which was an emotive title rather than being technically correct) presents a non-neutral point of view. MilborneOne (talk) 16:14, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
  • @MilborneOne: The BBC is obligated to be impartial, yet as I showed in the move rationale, it primarily uses poll tax. Calling it the poll tax is not non-neutral, it's using common language. Number 57 16:21, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
  • We already have a link and redirect from Poll Tax so we dont need to use what you call the common name, people would expect it to be an article on Poll Taxes in the United Kingdom, the Community Charge was not a Poll Tax. MilborneOne (talk) 16:26, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
    • As I've explained above, there has only been one poll tax in the UK, and this is it. As for "what you call the common name", I think I've fairly conclusively demonstrated that it is the common name. Do you have an alternative source that shows "Community Charge" is the common name? Number 57 16:33, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
    • I didnt know they had been a Poll Tax in the United Kingdom as the links take you to Community Charge which doesnt explain that there was a real Poll Tax at some point, you have to remember that the Community Charge was not a Poll Tax, just because people called it a Poll Tax to create an emotive word to challenge the concept still doesnt make it a Poll Tax. MilborneOne (talk) 17:05, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
      • Playing dumb does nothing to detract from the fact that the commom name of this tax was the poll tax, regardless of the technicalities of whether it was a true poll tax or not. Number 57 17:37, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
• Support simply per WP:COMMONNAME. –Davey2010 • (talk) 13:39, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per MilborneOne. DrKiernan (talk) 17:33, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

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People People and non-payment of the Poll Tax

Mass non-payment - as well as a key factor in the down-fall a Tory PM - put an end to the hated Poll Tax (sometimes known as the 'Community Charge'). Given this, should not the article put events into their historic context, and pay slightly more attention to the role played by non-payment of the Poll Tax? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.16.154.85 (talk) 21:07, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I not convinced that there was "mass" non-payment and it was hyped as part of the no campaign - do we have any reliable sources what the level of non-payment actually was. MilborneOne (talk) 22:03, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

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Requested move 20 July 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move. Upon weighing the strength of the various arguments, I find a rough consensus to move. I gave less consideration to !votes that did not state an argument, or that only referred back to the 2014 RM - that was 3 years ago, things can change, and at any rate it resulted in "no consensus", not no move. In general I find the support !votes that invoke WP:COMMONNAME and the evidence to be more compelling. Two opposers have a strong point re natural disambiguation, but it seems to be the rough consensus that "poll tax" is enough better known that parenthetical disambiguation will be more recognizable for readers than "Community Charge". Cúchullain ^t/c 16:24, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

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Community Charge → Poll tax (United Kingdom) – Per WP:COMMONNAME. The tax was almost exclusively known as the poll tax, hence related topics such as Poll tax riots, All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation and Anti-Poll Tax Unions. Poll tax is the name overwhelmingly used in reliable sources, including in recent coverage. Searching the BBC produces 1,370 results for poll tax but just 260 for community charge. The Guardian produces 805 results for poll tax and just 47 for community charge; many of those results are unrelated. Book results also favour poll tax such as The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age ("officially called the community charge but universally known as the poll tax"). It makes little sense for Wikipedia to be such an outlier here. AusLondonder (talk) 18:10, 20 July 2017 (UTC)--Relisting. —usernamekiran(talk) 21:18, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per recent discussion above, do we really have to repeat all the arguments again so soon. MilborneOne (talk) 14:58, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

MilborneOne By "so soon" do you mean three years later? AusLondonder (talk) 01:40, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Not very long for a subject that is stable with no real current activity. MilborneOne (talk) 08:14, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

So you'd have preferred I moved it out of process a few times? AusLondonder (talk) 08:36, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

• Support Per overwhelming evidence that this is the WP:COMMONNAME. Number 57 15:38, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is not the only poll tax in UK history. Srnec (talk) 00:02, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Correction. @Srnec: it is the only poll tax in UK history. The others preceded the establishment of the UK. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:31, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment this is one of the problems with moving the article as the Community Charge is not actually a Poll Tax. MilborneOne (talk) 15:20, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. As per the comments in 2014 and above. ThinkingTwice ^{contribs | talk} 18:44, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
• Support as per above and COMMONNAME - All reliable sources go with "Poll tax" so therefore we should too. –Davey2010^Talk 18:56, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Current title is recognizable, natural, precise, concise and consistent. Per WP:AT, natural disambiguation is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation, particularly when the parenthetical disambiguator is longer and less common. The common name argument is unconvincing when "Community Charge" is much more common than "Poll tax (United Kingdom)". (There are about 19 ghits[1] for "Poll tax (United Kingdom)" but 109,000[2] for "Community Charge".) On the point of consistency, none of the other articles in Category:Local taxation in the United Kingdom or Category:Poll taxes are disambiguated with a country name in parentheses and since "Community Charge riots" is considerably less common than "poll tax riots" (by about an order of a thousand) I see no problem with the other article titles. DrKay (talk) 21:03, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
  • The COMMONNAME test applies to the bare name, not to the disambuiguated title. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:27, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
• Support. "Poll tax" is so overwhelmingly the WP:COMMONNAME for this topic that it would be wrong to use the WP:NATURALDIS alternative. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:18, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose per previous, failed RM. I don't see anything that makes this move request different from the last.— Zzyzx Wolfe ^(TALK_CONT) 04:21, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
• Support Quite clearly the common name. "Born as the 'community charge'... dying as the 'poll tax.'" [3]. Also, see an analysis in a Scotsman article from 2013. Drchriswilliams (talk) 21:31, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
• Support Good evidence for it being the common name. Would dispute that current name is 'recognizable'. --A.D.Hope (talk) 17:14, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose as the current title is more natural. "Community charge" is not particularly obscure, and contemporary news sources referred to both that and "poll tax" in equal measure. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:27, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
• Support: per WP:COMMONNAME. I have never, ever, heard of poll tax being called "community charge". DrStrauss talk 19:03, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

On every adult

This article says the poll tax levied a single flat-rate tax "on every adult". This is not so, as monks and nuns were exempt.

amount of poll tax

Can't find any info on the amount of this poll tax (converted to today's value). I see that it was different by town, but it would be nice to know the approximate amount. 2A02:AB88:2A07:6200:F9BC:2A52:89D2:11DF (talk) 00:31, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

The Poll Tax: Can't Pay - Will Not Pay!

The Poll Tax: Can't Pay - Will Not Pay!

To reflect on an above comment, is it not time to state that the mass non-payment campaign was a key factor in the down-fall a Tory PM and put end to the hated tax? Given this, is it not time that events were finally put into their historic context and more attention paid to the role played by the Mass Non-payment Campaign? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.166.157 (talk) 19:05, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Describing the Council Tax

In the "Abolition" section, in the paragraph about the Council Tax, it says properties are placed in bands based on a range of property values, thereby capping the maximum amount.

I don't understand the way this is written; placing properties in bands certainly cannot cap anything.

Does it really mean property owners are classified in bands according to the range of values their properties fall into, and for each band a cap value is assigned to limit the owner's tax payments?

Or is the tax calculated for each individual piece of property separately, regardless of who owns it? Or what? TooManyFingers (talk) 16:58, 14 June 2024 (UTC)