The poll tax or The Community Charge was a fixed rate of tax placed upon each legal adult in the UK determined by there local authority and acted as funding for that local authorities amenities and services due to austerity cuts to local governments in the years leading up. It was introduced by the Conservative government of the then Prime Minister Margret Thatcher who was already a divisive figure at the time. After Thatcher was ousted from power by the party in 1990 and much civil unrest, it was abolished in 1991 and replaced with the counsel tax in 1993 witch is still in effect today.
The Poll Tax replaced the tax rating system and was announced all the way back in the 1973 Conservative manifesto back during Ted Heath's government when Mrs. thatcher was Environment secretary. In Thatcher's 1987 manifesto it was announced that these measures (already in place in Scotland) would be implemented in England and Wales during the 1990/91 fiscal year. Interestingly, the tax was never implemented in Northern Island, most likely due to the unrest going on there at the time with the troubles and IRA threat. Upon its implementation working adults would pay 100 percent tax whereas students would pay only 20 percent. This presented an issue in collection as the local authority and landlords had trouble pinning who was living were, with other administrative issues including tax avoidance (particularly in Scotland), as well as collection difficulties in more mobile areas such as universities and student towns.
Opposition began to present its self when it became evident that the tax was unfairly targeting those who are disadvantaged in society, particularly people from working class towns. This and a combination of other sanctions and cuts the Tory government had imposed upon these areas throughout the past decade lead to great levels of civil unrest and eventually these disgruntled citizens had had enough. They took to the streets for mass demonstration and this soon descended into large scale riots, looting and bloody stand offs with riot police tasked to defuse the situation. This resulted in completely inappropriate uses of excessive force, thus evermore widening the great divide between the public, the government and law enforcement agencies that had been growing exponentially throughout the 1980s. Particularly in the north of England in cities such as Liverpool.
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