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A leaflet explaining the Community Charge (the so-called "poll tax"), Department of the Environment, April 1989. The Community Charge, commonly 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.
The poll tax riots were a series of riots in British towns and cities during protests against the Community Charge (commonly known as the "poll tax"), introduced by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Poll taxes are regressive, meaning the higher someone's income is, the lower the tax is as a proportion of income: for example, a $100 tax on an income of $10,000 is a 1% tax rate, while $100 tax on a $500 income is 20%. Its acceptance or "neutrality" depends on the balance between the tax demanded and the resources of the population.
The All Britain Anti Poll Tax Federation, commonly known as "the Fed", was an organisation in Great Britain to co-ordinate the activities of local Anti-Poll Tax Unions (APTUs) campaigning against the Poll tax (officially the "Community Charge") brought in by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1989 (Scotland) and 1990 (England and Wales).
Following Thatcher's departure, her former chancellor Nigel Lawson labelled the poll tax as "the one great blunder of the Thatcher years". The succeeding Major government announced the abolition of the tax in spring 1991 and, in 1993, replaced it with Council Tax, a banded property tax similar in many respects to the older system of rates. [183]
Don't Pay UK cited Margaret Thatcher's poll tax ("community charge") in 1989 and 1990—a tax with a fixed cost for each adult in the country—as a parallel. [5] [23] 17 million people refused to pay the poll tax, leading to its removal in 1991. [5] [3] Instead, Council Tax was introduced by John Major in 1993. [12]
In 1990, Thatcher's government introduced the Community Charge, popularly known as the Poll Tax, a new way of funding local councils based on a fixed per-head fee. This proved very unpopular, and led to riots. [2]
Thatcher was re-elected for a third term with another landslide in 1987, but her subsequent support for the Community Charge (also known as the "poll tax") was widely unpopular, and her increasingly Eurosceptic views on the European Community were not shared by others in her cabinet.