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A poll tax is a tax of a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Various privileges of citizenship, including voter registration or issuance of driving licenses and resident hunting and fishing licenses, were conditioned on payment of poll taxes to encourage the collection of this tax revenue.
Poll taxes are regressive, meaning the higher someone's income is, the lower the tax is as a proportion of income: for example, a $100 tax on an income of $10,000 is a 1% tax rate, while $100 tax on a $500 income is 20%. Its acceptance or "neutrality" depends on the balance between the tax demanded and the resources of the population.
History of the poll tax by state from 1868 to 1966. Southern states had adopted the poll tax as a requirement for voting as part of a series of laws in the late 19th century intended to exclude black Americans from politics so far as practicable without violating the Fifteenth Amendment.
Before 1895, direct taxes were understood to be limited to "capitation or poll taxes" (Hylton v. United States) [41] and "taxes on lands and buildings, and general assessments, whether on the whole property of individuals or on their whole real or personal estate" (Springer v. United States). [42]
The Internal Revenue Service administers all U.S. federal tax laws on domestic activities, except those taxes administered by TTB. IRS functions include: Processing federal tax returns (except TTB returns), including those for Social Security and other federal payroll taxes; Providing assistance to taxpayers in completing tax returns
The poll tax mechanism varied on a state-by-state basis; in Alabama, the poll tax was cumulative, meaning that a man had to pay all poll taxes due from the age of twenty-one onward in order to vote. In other states, poll taxes had to be paid for several years before being eligible to vote. Enforcement of poll tax laws was patchy.
The Lodge Bill of 1890, also referred to as the Federal Elections Bill or by critics as the Lodge Force Bill, was a proposed bill to ensure the security of elections for U.S. Representatives. It was drafted and proposed by Representative Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts and sponsored in the Senate by George Frisbie Hoar with the endorsement ...
Although the Twenty-fourth Amendment—which banned the use of poll taxes in federal elections— was ratified a year earlier, Johnson's administration and the bill's sponsors did not include a provision in the voting rights bill banning poll taxes in state elections because they feared courts would strike down the legislation as unconstitutional.