For us in the Mauritius of 2006, it could be instructive to think back to Britain in the late 1980s and early ?90s, when British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher?s seemingly unbeatable right-wing government was attempting to impose ?AN UNCIVILISED AND UNJUST POLL TAX? on the British people.

A poll tax is a tax of a uniform, fixed amount per individual. Such taxes were important sources of revenue for many countries into the 19th century, but this is no longer the case. There are several famous cases of poll taxes in history, notably a tax formerly required for voting in parts of the United States, as well as two taxes levied by John of Gaunt and Margaret Thatcher in the14th and 20th centuries respectively.

The word ?poll? is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning ?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. ?Going to the polls» is a common idiom for voting (deriving, of course, from the fact that early voting, and even a system of voting in modern Kenya) involved head-counts (in Kenya voters queued behind the pictures of candidates at each polling station and were counted!). In some Islamic states there was provision for a poll tax (the Jizya) to be levied on adult non-Muslim males.

<B>Tax on Voting, the US example. </B>

A poll tax, in the sense of a discriminatory tax which was a pre-condition of the exercise of the right to vote, emerged in some US states between the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. After the right to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the 15th Amendment many Southern states enacted poll tax laws which often included a ?grand father?that allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. These laws achieved the desired effect of discouraging and in practice preventing African and Native Americans from taking part in an election.

The United States government did not levy any poll taxes that blocked access to voting rights, largely because it was enlightened and more liberal that many of the individual States of the Union.However, the Federal government did not conduct elections, instead delegating conduct of elections to the States.

The 24th Amendment outlawed the use of this tax (or any other tax) as a pre-condition in voting in Federal elections and it was enacted as recently as 1964! According to the records, ?the 1966 Supreme Court case extended this explicit enactment as a matter of judicial interpretation of a more general provision, ruling that the imposition of a poll tax in state elections violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution?.

<B>The poll tax: the UK example. </B>

A first recorded example in English history is that of John of Gaunt, the regent of Richard II of England. He levied his poll tax in 1380 to finance the war against France that was in progress. Each person aged over 15 was required to pay the amount of one shilling, which was a large amount then. This provoked the Peasants Revolt in 1381, due in part to attempts to restore feudal conditions in rural areas. Centuries later,the 1980s saw a period of general confrontation between central government(Mrs Thatcher?s government) and Labour-controlled local authorities, that eventually led to the abolition of the Greater London Council and 6 other metropolitan councils.

The Green Paper of 1986, Paying for Local Government, produced by the Department of the Environment after consulations between Rothschild, Waldergrave and Kenneth Baker, proposed the Community Charge. This was a fixed tax per adult resident, hence a poll tax, although there was a reduction for poor people. This charged each person for the services provided in their community.

This proposal was contained in the Conservative Manifesto for the General Election of 1987.The legislation introducing the Community Charge was passed in 1988 and the new tax replaced the rates in England, Wales and Scotland. Additionally a 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.

Protesters complained that the tax shifted from the estimated price of a house to the number of people living in it, with the perceived effect of shifting the tax burden from the rich to the poor. Mrs Thatcher, losing popularity, chose to champion the Community Charge herself and apparently chose to be both ruthless in imposing it and adamant that there would be no ?reversals in policy?.

The charge was bitterly opposed BY MOST PEOPLE and mass protests were organised by the All-Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation, even though non-payment meant that people could be prosecuted.Up to 18 million people refused to pay the tax, enforcement measures became increasingly draconian, and unrest mounted and culminated in a number of riots.According to the records ?the most serious of these riots happened in London on March 31, 1990, during a protest at Trafalgar Square, London, which more than 200,000 protesters attended? ?For this and other reasons, Mrs. Thatcher resigned and all three contenders to succeed her pledged to abandon the tax?.

She was replaced as Party leader and PM by John Major, who with hisChancellor of the Exchequer(i.e.Minister of Finance) announced a raise in Value Added Tax from 15% to 17.5%, a new Council Tax from the start of the 1993/94 financial year AND THE ABOLITION OF THE COMMUNITY CHARGE ( as the Poll tax was called).End of Thatcher, end of Poll Tax, end of story!

<B>Playing home! </B>

Are there similarities between the poll tax saga and our 2006 National ResidenceProperty Tax(NRPT) soon to be( or not to be!) made into law in Mauritius?In no way a student of taxation, I will neverless point at the obvious negative social dangers of levying tax uniformly on people, independent of degrees of wealth and capacity to pay.The UK poll tax was seen as a tax one had to pay ?in order to exist?.The local one is a tax you will have to pay ?in order to own land?.As has been pointed out by many a specialist, owning 20 perches of land in lets say Morcellement St.Jean and Morcellement St André will attract the same tax, as will one arpent in Floreal be worth the same attention as the arpent in Fond-du Sac(with apologies to those living in these locations for quoting their places).As for a fine of Rs 5 million for an ?unspecified crime? one has not committed, imposed by no judge in no court?, think about the total injustice of it for some if not all those concerned by the Campement Tax(CT).

Both the right to life and to property are fundamental, inaliable, human rights.In fact many elderly Mauritians who may have their land snatched from then for non-payment of tax will see this as a snatching away of their very reason to exist!

Thatcher was called the Iron Lady for her unyielding character, which was perhaps useful to her country during the Falklands war, but certainly became a huge handicap when an ill-thought out tax, belonging to a past era was thrust on people as a law! Our Finance Bill does set out to try and modernise Mauritius. However, its NRPT and CT are probably far too hastily thought out and too dangerous in their social consequences to be made law in the present form.

And the rule of law cannot be anything but fair.

<B>Dr. Michael ATCHIA

[email protected]</B>