LESSONS FROM THE BRITISH POLL TAX DISASTER
- 2 December 1991
- journal article
- research article
- Published by University of Chicago Press in National Tax Journal
- Vol. 44 (4.2) , 421-436
- https://doi.org/10.1086/ntj41788932
Abstract
As a means of financing British local government, the attempt to replace the residential property tax with a community charge, or poll tax, has proved disastrous. Yet underlying the reform was the intellectually appealing notion of seeking to enhance accountability in local government affairs. This paper traces the origins of the poll tax, describes how it was intended to operate, documents the implementation difficulties, and analyzes the reasons for its failure. It concludes that the notion of accountability underlying the poll tax is flawed, and that mistakes were made in implementation. Many of the lessons learned are of general applicability.Keywords
This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit:
- Representation without Taxation: An Empirical Assessment of the Validity of the Accountability Argument underlying the Reform of Local Government Finance in EnglandFiscal Studies, 1991
- Distributional Issues in Local TaxationThe Economic Journal, 1991
- Does the flypaper model stick? A test of the relative performance of the flypaper and conventional models of local government budgetary behaviourPublic Choice, 1991
- Local government finance: the 1990 reformsPublished by Institute for Fiscal Studies ,1990
- THE PRESENTATION OF THE POLL TAXThe Political Quarterly, 1989
- How Far is the Poll Tax a ‘Communitv Charge’? The Implications of Service Usage EvidencePolicy & Politics, 1989