What was the Poll Tax?

[dogsod]

I'm too young to remember it and I can't for thw life of me figure it out. It was going to be a community charge that was replaced by council tax anyway? What's the difference?
What would it have cost you and what was it for?

I have googled it and it just comes up with long, pages and pages. Can anyone give me a clue please. Its brought up a lot on here and I'm getting a bit grumpy reading it and not knowing what it is

Students did have to pay it. I distinctly remember paying mine whilst at uni in Scotland!

I was in Uni in England from 89-92. We definitely got bills sent to our halls when it was introduced in 1990 in England (after the wildly successful and popular pilot in Scotland the year before 🤣🤣🤣)

I was married at time and a SAHM. Husband was on a low income. I had to pay the same as someone earning. Ridiculous! I protested. It was a very unfair and cruel tax.

The theory was that everyone paid the same amount. I'm a widowed pensioner and get 25% off but my ndn's have 4 working adults so if you look it that way it seems a fairer way of doing it. But firstly you have to know how many people live in each property and suddenly rented properties had only one occupant. We lived in London where Cedars Rd is under Wandsworth one side and Lambeth the other. Wandsworth was nil and Lambeth around £800. A friend of ours had two student dc's both of whom refused to pay. In order to prevent getting a bad credit rating they paid. So from a good idea in theory in practice it fell at the first fence. You ask yourself why was it even brought in?

We've just had a similar thing happen today with Jeremy Hunt removing the budget set out by Kwasi Kwarteng and the cap on energy prices finishing now on 31st March.

^Students did have to pay it. I distinctly remember paying mine whilst at uni in Scotland!%

I’m in Scotland too and did not have to pay it as a student. I applied to the council and got a zero bill.

It was a disgraceful tax. No wonder people rioted.

One thing that irritated me was that pre poll tax, landlords included the rates in with the rent. When the poll tax was introduced the tenant paid the poll tax but the rent didn’t reduce.

Wasn't there a difference depending on what accommodation you were living in, eg Halls of Residence vs Uni owned private flats vs private rented housing or with family?

I lived in a council flat I shared with my husband and my bill was definitely nothing! I’m sure there can’t have been an exception just for me!

thatcher really hated Scotland

No she didn't, that is the classic left wing scots inadequacy talking where every policy or action someone might disagree with (even slightly) is portayed as a highly sinister and vindictive personal attack on people

Ah thats put us pesky Scots back in our place, if only we all didn't feel so inadequate! No wonder support for independence is soaring here.

We lived in London where Cedars Rd is under Wandsworth one side and Lambeth the other. Wandsworth was nil and Lambeth around £800.

i previously lived on Lambeth/Wandsworth border under old the rating system and all the estate agents had under their photos, ‘Rates to London borough of Wandsworth’ or ‘Rates to London Borough of Croydon’ if that was applicable. I’d imagine the community charge made the situation a whole lot worse.

The Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, felt that rates were an unfair tax, especially to lone older widows and widowers who had not moved house. Labour councils were seen or perceived as more expensive, and so part of the idea was that if everyone had to pay something, they would be less likely to vote Labour at local elections.

The poll tax was chosen, whereas local income tax or a local sales tax could have achieved the same transparency more or less.

@kizzywizz how many adults were living in your home?

ChazsBrilliantAttitude · Today 12:11
They were sending letters to everyone at the Uni halls. They knew. Students were not exempt when it first came in in 1990.

Not sure how I paid absolutely nothing then. Just had to apply to the council and provide proof I was a student.

Yes, you’re definitely right about that. Or they thought people would protest about council overspending. How wrong they were!

It was a pigs ear. Yes if you had four working adults under the same roof logically you'd cost more service wise. But students, unemployment, that's where they came unstuck. The real crime however was the right to buy and sell at a profit.

Except for the discounts for various reasons.

Ah, Poll tax. I speedily discovered that certain adults were exempt from PollTax; diplomats. convicts, and members of religious orders.

Let's just draw a veil over that.

Yes there were discounts and also rebates for those on low incomes. The first reason we were unimpressed is because even someone living alone in our then flat would have paid less under the rates, so the story of the poor old soul living alone didn’t wash. It was odd really as our flat was 2 flats knocked into one, so lord knows how little the people in the single flats were paying.

The other anomaly was that in a household you were billed as an individual but when it came to applying for rebates, you were treated as a couple, so basically a tax on marriage! It was never going to work!

Not sure what the rateable value or the council tax band for a prison cell would be either!

2 adults 1 child.

Even people on benefits had to pay it. I remember being a 20yo single parent getting £60 odd a week to feed myself and my son (plus pay gas/electric/water etc) and I was expected to find £50 poll tax. Funnily enough I couldn't find it, I was lucky to have a couple of quid left at the end of the week let alone £50. Ended up being taken to court and threatened with prison. Went hungry for weeks until I paid the fine off.

Yes, everyone had to pay something, but there were discounts for those on certain benefits etc. I think, from memory, that there were discounts of up to 75%, so some people only had to pay 25% of the full amount.

At the time I was a sahm to two young dc. Under Poll Tax, we had to pay twice as much as with rates. I got a pt evening/weekend job and my Poll Tax was a full week's wage, 25% of my take home pay. And we were paying high interest rates on our mortgage...

As I recall, Thatcher thought if everybody had to pay towards the cost of local services they would have a strong interest in keeping costs down and would vote accordingly, i.e. Tory. She felt strongly that there were too many households who took out and put nothing in. Oddly this principle didn't apply to wealthy tax dodgers.

There was those adverts with a sweet little old lady in one house and three or four hulking adults spilling out of an identical house next door to explain the logic.

It was an administrative nightmare for young adults/students as the bills were always wrong and you would move and then find you had a CCJ for non payment of a bill you never received.

I think that was why students initially had to pay but were then exempt