Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The tax emerged in some states of the United States in the late nineteenth century as part of the Jim Crow laws. After the right to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution , a number of states enacted poll tax laws as a device for restricting voting rights.
History of the poll tax by state from 1868 to 1966. Southern states had adopted the poll tax as a requirement for voting as part of a series of laws in the late 19th century intended to exclude black Americans from politics so far as practicable without violating the Fifteenth Amendment. This required that voting not be limited by "race, color ...
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 United States imposed income taxes briefly during the Civil War and the 1890s. In 1913, the 16th Amendment was ratified, however, the United States Constitution Article 1, Section 9 defines a direct tax. The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution did not create a new tax.
Proof of payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to voter registration in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia (1877), North and South Carolina, Virginia (until 1882 and again from 1902 with its new constitution), [35] [36] Texas (1902) [60] and in some northern and western states. The Texas poll tax "required ...
1832 – 1832 United States presidential election: Andrew Jackson reelected president; Martin Van Buren elected vice president. 1832 – Jackson vetoes the charter renewal of the Second Bank of the United States, bringing to a head the Bank War and ultimately leading to the Panic of 1837. December 28, 1832 – Calhoun resigns as vice president.
Notes 1] As women could not vote, the tax did not apply to them until 1920, when the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution legally enfranchised them. [12] [13] May Thompson Evans, c. 1940. After the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, states that had poll tax as a prerequisite for voting responded in different ways.
The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1964) prohibited poll taxes in federal elections; five states (Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia) continued to require poll taxes for voters in state elections. By this ruling, the Supreme Court banned the use of poll taxes in state elections.