Not paying the Poll Tax is not just an individual act - it is part od a collective, mass protest, which will be more successful the more people are united in doing it, or rather, not doing it, together.
Non-payment is the most direct, simple and effective means of making a protest against the Poll Tax. The government and many local councils are busy trying to scare people into paying. Don't be intimidated! The are clear legal limits to what local councils can do to non-payers. Above all, there is safety in numbers. Get together with other non-payers on your street, your estate, or in your neighbourhood or workplace and make sure everyone has up-to-date information about how not to pay the Poll Tax.
Non-payment of the Poll Tax is not a criminal offence. You cannot get a criminal record simply for failing to pay it. It is a civil matter between the non-payer and the local council, which can only act within the limits of the Poll Tax and other. legislation.
In trying to recover unpaid Poll Taxes, your local Council has a number of options. Which ones it will and will not pursue is largely a matter of the policy it adopts. For example, your council can make a commitment now not to use bailiffs against non-payers, particulary if local Anti-Poll Tax Unions campaign on this issue.
1. Your Poll Tax bill Your local council will send you a bill and probably a Poll Tax payment book for instalment payments.
The first thing that happens if a bill remains unpaid (or if one instalment remains unpaid) is that the local Council must issue you with a final reminder. They are required by law to do this before pursuing the matter any further in court. The law does not specity how long after payment is due the reminder must be issued. It could be months before you receive a reminder. When a reminder is finally issued to you it will require vou to pay all or part of vour Poll lax within seven days. If at the end of seven days you still haven't paid (there is no need to make any other response at this stage; in fact, it's best if you simply ignore the reminder), the council has the right to proceed to court.
Note: you will lose the right to pay by instalments if you fail to respond to this notice within seven days. But as you don't intend to pay at all, this is no problem!
2. The council goes to court If the council decides to pursue the matter in court (and it is not required to do so in law, merely allowed to), it must apply for what is called a liability order. The Poll Tax law says that non-payment cases must come before a magistrates court. Magistrates courts are already over-burdened with a backlog of cases.
The Council will ask the court to grant it a 'liability order' which allows it to take certain steps to recover the unpaid Poll Tax from the non-payer. You will receive a summons asking you to appear before the court to explain why you have not paid. You are not required to attend but you should. You are entitled to legal representation or the support of a Mackenzie Not paying the Poll Tax is easy!
Friend'. Contact your local anti-Poll Tax group as soon as you get a summons! Remeber you have still not committed any criminal act and you are not on trial for a crime. The police are not involved at all.
Having obtained a liability order, the Council has the right to demand information from you such as: your place of work, your income etc. Failure to respond to these questions is punishable by a fine of £100 (£400 for giving false information). You can defend yourself against a liability order by showing in court that:
* you have actually paid the Poll Tax (at any time up to the moment of the hearing; & that you are not entered on the Poll Tax register; & that the local Council has not followed the rules in billing you or sending you a reminder; &o that you are on the register elsewhere (you cannot be liable for Poll Tax in two Councils).
You can also explain to the court your reasons for not paying — can't pay, won't pay, or a combination of both! However, this will not get you off the legal hook!
3. How can the council try to get your Poll Tax? If the court grants a liability order, it is up to the council to decide which of three methods of collecting the unpaid Poll Tax it wishes to use. It cannot use all three at once. The three methods are:
# benefit deductions * attachment of earnings do a 'distress warrant", i.e. using the bailiffs. In Scotland, local Councils were given powers to have bank accounts frozen. This is not possible in England and Wales. Mortgage and HP payments cannot be touched.
4. Deduction of benefits The council can issue an order to the local DSS office to deduct unpaid Poll Tax from Income Support. Other benefits such as sickness, unemployment, invalidity, or retirement pensions cannot be touched.
The DSS is not allowed to deduct more than 5% of your Income Support even if that 5% is not enough to cover the amount of your Poll Tax over a whole year. This means in practice that the council cannot get its hands on more than £1.85 per week for a single person and £2.75 per week for a couple. The DSS must inform you in writing in advance of any decision to deduct your Poll Tax from your benefit. It must also inform you of your right to appeal against the decision. You can appeal on the grounds that you do not receive enough Income Support to make the deduction or that you have other debts which are more pressing than the Poll Tax. 5. Attachment of earnings If you are employed, the Council can get an 'attachment of earnings' order. This means that your employer will be forced to deduct a certain amount of your unpaid Poll Tax bill from your wages and pay it directly to the Council.
if you earn less than £152 per month no attachment can be made (the Council will then get a 'distress warrant' below). If you earn more than that, the maximum amount that can be deducted increases the more you earn. For example, if you earn between £152 and £220 per month, £5 can be deducted each month. If you earn £220 to £260, £8 can be deducted: between £260 to £280, £11 can be deducted; between £280 and £300, £14 and so on.
If you are already under an 'attachment of earnings' order because of another debt, nothing can be deducted for the Poll Tax until the previous debt has been paid off. If you change jobs while under an attachment of earnings order, you must inform the Council of the details of your new employer, etc. If you are under an attachments of earnings order you will be expected to contribute a small amount for each deduction to your employer's costs.
Employers are required by law to enforce an attachment of earnings order. However, employers are reluctant to perform )
the function. The Financial Times, amongst others, has warned that attachment of earnings because of Poll Tax "potentially disasterous consequences for non-payment has industry and commerce."
Poll Tax non-payment is not and should not be grounds for discipline at work or dismissal. Where such threats are made, union organisation is the best response. If you think at some stage you might be subject to an attachment ot earnings order for non-payment you should raise this in your union branch now. Get together with other non-payers in your workplace to ensure full union support.
6. " Distress warrants" — The Bailiffs A distress warrant is simply a warrant for the Council to employ bailiffs to seize or 'distrain' goods owned by the non-payer. No Council is required to use bailiffs. It is a matter of policy for each Council to decide. In practice, the council will probably send in bailiffs only when other tactics have You will probably receive notice from the Council that they intend to apply for a distress warrant if you don't pay up. You will also probably receive notice of the bailiffs intention to visit. If bailiffs are coming, make sure you have as many witnesses to all the events as possible. Make sure you write down everything they say and do. Your local anti-Poll Tax group should organise the largest possible presence of neighbours, local trade unionist, Councillors, MPs and so on. Have cameras ready! Bailiffs are not allowed to gain entry by breaking down your door. They cannot smash windows or force them open. They can use force to lift a latch or turn a door handle to see if the door is open. They can enter by a window if it is partly open. Inside, bailiffs can use force to open any internal door which is locked to them. If they fail to gain entry once, they can come back to try again as many times as they like without informing you.
Bailiffs must act within the law and are liable in both civil and criminal courts if they do not. Bailiffs must have written authorisation from the local Council, a copy of the enforcement regulations, and a memorandum of the amount owed in unpaid Poll Tax. They cannot damage your goods and they cannot use or threaten to use force against your person. Bailiffs cannot seize clothes, bedding, or the tools of your trade. They cannot seize goods which are fixed to the floor or attached to the fabric of the building. They cannot seize goods which belong to relatives (other than a wife or husband), hired video or TV. Goods belonging to children under 18 cannot be seized.
Goods can be protected from seizure by transferring ownership to another but only if this is done before the distress warrant is issued. In shared households bailiffs are bound to be confused over who owns what.
Bailiffs will identify goods to the value of the Poll Tax you owe and then tag them. They may ask you to enter into a walking possession' agreement which means they leave the identified goods on the premises in your keeping while a date and place for a sale is arranged. There is no fixed time limit between the bailiffs' visit and the sale of any goods they seize. If you pay the Poll Tax at this stage your goods cannot be sold. Police play no part in carrying out distress warrants and cannot assist bailiffs in doing so though they may be on hand to prevent a 'breach of the peace'.
If your goods are seized and sold for the value of the Poll Tax you owe, that is the end of it. You have committed no criminal offence and have no criminal record.
7. Imprisonment In Scotland there is no provision for imprisonment for non-payment of the Poll Tax. In England and Wales the law clearly states that imprisonment is only a last resort when all other means of recovery have failed. Local Councils will not be able to even consider imprisonment until attempts made by the bailiffs to secure goods have failed.
If they decide to proceed the Council must apply to a magistrates court for a summons. If you receive a summons you must appear before the court. The Local Authority must then prove that you have failed to pay your Poll Tax through 'wilful refusal'. The court has the power to sentence you to up to three months in prison. Payment of the Poll Tax at any time will either stop you going to prison or release you immediately when you're inside.
At any stage of the process you can stop the Council from proceeding further and avoid any penalties simply by paying your Poll Tax. However, for the mass non-payment campaign to be fully effective, as many people as possible must take non-payment to the end.
Mass non-payment, and choking up the courts, are essential tactics in the strategy to make the Poll Tax unworkable and force the government to retreat.
In Scotland, over one and a quarter million people have either not registered, not paid, or are in serious arrears. More people are joining the non-payment movement ail the time. Very few poindings' (valuation of goods by ballits) nave even been attempted or successfully carried out.
Just think: will it be possible for your local council to issue tens of thousands of reminders, apply for thousands of summonses, order thousands of benefit or wage deductions, issue thousands of bailiffs warrants? In Scotland, Councils could still be chasing people who did not pay last year in five years time, and in England and Wales it will be 1991 before some Councils start court proceedings.
If you are not paying the Poll Tax get involved in your local Anti-Poll Tax Union or workplace anti-poll tax group. You can usually find details of your local group by watching out for leaflets, flyposting at bus-stops or by contacting the All Britain Federation of Anti-Poll Tax Groups on 071-737 3301. Reproduced from 'What will Happen If I Don't Pay the Poll Tx?' By the Poll Tax Legal Group
stance; a mass campaign for non-payment,non-collection and non-implementation and a struggle against the cuts to force more money from central government. In order to realise this we must fight for the organisation of the mass non-payment that exists and for the defence of non-payers. This means an orientation to the organisations that have the strength to carry this out: the