POLL TAX

A tax still levied in many of the Continental states, and formerly also in England, in proportion to the rank or fortune of the individual. In England this species of tax was first levied in 1378; and, as is well known, it was from the brutality with which the levying of it was accompanied, that the rebellion of Wat Tyler took its rise in 1381. Various poll faxes were levied at different periods in the subsequent history of England; but they were finally abolished in the reign of William HI. See Taxation. [s. 976]