Poll taxes in the United States
Updated: Wikipedia source
Poll taxes were used in the United States until they were outlawed following the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Poll taxes (taxes of a fixed amount on every liable individual, regardless of their income) had also been a major source of government funding among the colonies and states which went on to form the United States. Poll taxes became a tool of disenfranchisement in the South during Jim Crow, following the end of Reconstruction. This form of disenfranchisement was common until the Voting Rights Act, which is considered one of the most monumental pieces of civil rights legislation ever passed. The Voting Rights Act followed the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibited both Congress and the states from implementing poll taxes, but only for federal elections.