poll tax
[pohl]
- a capitation tax, the payment of which is sometimes a prerequisite to exercise the right of suffrage.
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Origin of poll tax
First recorded in 1685–95
Also called head tax.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for poll tax
Historical Examples
The poll-tax was abolished as a prerequisite for voting in the case of women.
The poll-tax, thereafter, was always a favorite source of revenue in Russia.
The Story of RussiaR. Van Bergen, M.A.
Ivan Kalita, as farmer of the poll-tax, grew immensely wealthy.
The Story of RussiaR. Van Bergen, M.A.
Arkansas, in 1893, based the franchise on a one-year poll-tax.
The New NationFrederic L. Paxson
Virginia based the suffrage on property, literacy, or poll-tax in 1902.
The New NationFrederic L. Paxson
poll tax
- a tax levied per head of adult population
- an informal name for (the former) community charge
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
poll tax
A tax required as a qualification for voting. After the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution extended the vote to blacks in 1870, many southern states instituted poll taxes to prevent blacks from voting. The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1964, prohibits poll taxes for federal elections.
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.