Mortgage Help   Mortgage Rates Real Estate Credit Foreclosure Tax
	Tax Poll Tax   Property Taxation: Depreciation Taxation of Profit Adjusted Basis Home Mortgage Interest and Points Deduction   1031 EXCHANGES Capital Gains Tax Corporate Tax Corporation Dividend Tax Double Taxation European Union Savings Taxation Homeowners exemption Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act. Flat Tax Principles of Income Tax Income taxes Inheritance Tax Installment Sales Poll Tax Progressive Tax Property taxes California Propositions Purposes and Effects of Taxation Retirement Tax Sales Tax Sales leaseback Tariff Tax Credit, Exemption Equivalent and Tax Tax Rates Tax Treaty Direct and Indirect Taxation Value Added Tax A poll tax, also known as soul tax, or capitation is a tax of a uniform, fixed amount per individual (as against income tax which is a percentage of income). Such taxes were important sources of revenue for many countries until the 19th century however, these have been discontinued since then. There are numerous 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. The word poll is an English word that once meant 'head', hence the name poll tax was coined for a per-person tax, expected to be paid by each person. However, in the United States of America, the term has come to be used almost exclusively for a fixed tax applied to voting. Since 'going to the polls' has now become a common idiom for voting, (the name derived, of course, from the fact that early voting involved head-counts), a new folk etymology has obscured any knowledge of the phrase's true origins in America.