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A poll tax, head tax, or capitation is a tax of a uniform, fixed amount per individual (as opposed to a percentage of income). When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax (and vice versa, if a poll tax obligation can be worked off). more...

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Such taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments from ancient times into the 19th century, but are not any more. There are several famous cases of poll taxes in history, notably a tax formerly required for voting in parts of the United States that was often designed to disenfranchise poor people, including African Americans, Native Americans, and whites of non-British descent, as well as two taxes levied by John of Gaunt and Margaret Thatcher in the 14th and 20th centuries respectively.

The word poll is an English word that once meant "head", hence the name poll tax for a per-person tax. However, in the United States, the term has come to be used almost exclusively for a fixed tax applied to voting. Since "going to the polls" is a common idiom for voting (deriving from the fact that early voting involved head-counts), a new folk etymology has supplanted common knowledge of the phrase's true origins in America.

United States

A poll tax in the sense of capitation plays a significant role in the history of taxation in the United States and the adoption of income tax as a significant source of government funding. However, the second meaning of poll tax, namely a tax on voting, is more widely known in the US today. Recent debate surrounds whether citizen purchase of sometimes costly state ID acts as a poll tax, keeping poor voters out of elections.

Capitation and Federal taxation

The capitation clause of Article I of the United States Constitution, reads "o capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken." Capitation here means a tax of a uniform, fixed amount per taxpayer. Direct tax means a tax levied directly by the United States federal government on taxpayers, as opposed to a tax on events or transactions.

The United States government levied direct taxes from time to time during the 18th and early 19th centuries. It levied direct taxes on the owners of houses, land, slaves, and estates in the late 1790s, but cancelled the taxes in 1802.

An income tax is neither a poll tax nor a capitation, as the amount of tax will vary from person to person depending on each person's income. Until a United States Supreme Court decision in 1895, all income taxes were deemed to be excises (indirect taxes). The Revenue Act of 1861 established the first income tax in the United States, to pay for the cost of the American Civil War. This income tax was abolished after the war, in 1872. Another income tax statute in 1894 was overturned in the Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. case in 1895, where the Supreme Court held that income taxes on income from property, such as rent income, interest income, and dividend income (but not income taxes on income from wages, employment, etc.) were to be treated as direct taxes. Because the statute in question had not apportioned income taxes on income from property by population, the statute was ruled unconstitutional. Finally, ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913 made possible modern income taxes, by removing the requirement of apportionment with respect to income taxes.

Read more at Wikipedia.org