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The Community Charge (commonly known as the "poll tax") was a system of taxation introduced in replacement of domestic rates in Scotland from 1989, prior to its introduction in England and Wales from 1990. It provided for a single flat-rate per-capita tax on every adult, at a rate set by the local authority. The charge was replaced by Council Tax in 1993, two years after its abolition was announced.〔() 〕 ==Origins== The abolition of the rating system of taxes (based on the notional rental value of a house) to fund local government had been unveiled by Margaret Thatcher when she was Shadow Environment Secretary in 1974, and was included in the manifesto of the Conservative Party in the October 1974 general election. In the 1979 elections, the Conservative manifesto stated that lowering income tax took priority, but the Government had not found time to publish a Green Paper, which they finally did complete in 1981 under the title ''Alternatives to Domestic Rates''. This Green Paper considered a flat-rate per-capita tax as a supplement to another tax, noting that a large flat-rate 'poll tax' would be seen as unfair. The 1980s saw a period of general confrontation between central government and Labour-controlled local authorities, that eventually led to the abolition of the Greater London Council and the six metropolitan county councils. The commitment to abolish the rates was replaced in the 1983 general election manifesto with a commitment to introduce the ability for central government to cap rates which it saw as excessive. This was introduced by the Rates Act 1984. Although the ratings system was supposed to have regular revaluations in order to minimise discrepancies, the revaluations in England and Wales had been cancelled in 1978 and 1983. The Scottish revaluation of 1985/1986 led to a great deal of criticism and gave added urgency to rates reform or replacement. The Green Paper of 1986, ''Paying for Local Government'', produced by the Department of the Environment from consultations between Lord Rothschild, William Waldegrave and Kenneth Baker, proposed the poll tax. This was a fixed tax per adult resident, hence the term 'poll tax', although there was a reduction for poor people. This charged each person for the services provided in their community. Owing to the variations in the amount of local taxes paid and the amount of grant provided by central government to individual local authorities, there were differences in the amount charged between councils. This proposal was contained in the Conservative manifesto for the 1987 General Election. The legislation introducing the poll tax was passed in 1988〔Local Government Finance Act 1988 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/41/contents〕 and the new tax replaced the rates in Scotland from the start of the 1989/90 financial year and in England and Wales from the start of the 1990/91 financial year. Additionally the Uniform Business Rate, levied by local government at a rate set by central government and then apportioned between local authorities in proportion to their population, was introduced. The tax was not implemented in Northern Ireland, which continued, as it still does , to levy the rating system, despite some unionists calling for the region to have the same taxation system as Great Britain. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「community charge」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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