Poll Tax

Poll Tax, term used for a tax levied on an individual, usually as a prerequisite for voting. Poll taxes are the same for all persons subject to them, regardless of their income, property, or other taxes paid (see Taxation).

Poll taxes were originally levied on conquered people by the ancient Greeks and Romans. In England a poll tax was first imposed in 1377 and was reimposed at intervals until 1698. In the 17th century this tax was an important source of revenue for financing wars with rival nations. A notable poll tax was imposed on the entire male peasant population of Russia by Tsar Peter the Great in 1718. One result of that tax was the institution of a census in order to provide a basis for financial calculations in connection with the tax and to aid in enforcement of the tax.

In the U.S., poll taxes were levied infrequently until after the American Civil War. They were then adopted by the southern states as a way of circumventing the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed former slaves the right to vote. Blacks without the means to pay the tax were refused the voting right. In later times, payment of the current year's tax was sometimes coupled with the requirement that all delinquent poll taxes also be paid before a person could vote. In this way the poll tax continued to disfranchise many blacks.

Subsequently poll taxes were repealed in several states. Further efforts to eliminate them centered, nationally, on the enactment of a constitutional amendment. Not until 1964, however, was the 24th Amendment ratified, finally prohibiting poll taxes in federal elections. In 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that under the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment, all poll taxes required for state elections were unconstitutional. See Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.