The Community Charge, popularly known as the "poll tax", was a system of taxation introduced to fund local government in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. It provided for a single flat-rate per-capita tax on every working adult, at a rate set by the local authority. The tax was intensely unpopular, and was abolished within a few years, in favour of a system broadly similar to that which it had initially replaced.

Implementation
For this among other reasons, Thatcher was challenged by Michael Heseltine for the Tory leadership. Although she prevailed by a margin of 50 votes, her opponent had far too many votes to avoid a second vote, and on November 22, 1990 Thatcher resigned and all three of the contenders to succeed her pledged to abandon the tax.
The successful candidate, John Major, appointed his defeated rival Michael Heseltine to the post of Environment Secretary, responsible for replacing the Community Charge. In 1991 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont, announced a raise in Value Added Tax from 15% to 17.5% to pay for a £140 reduction in the tax. By the time of the 1992 General Election, legislation had been passed replacing Community Charge with the Council Tax from the start of the 1993/94 financial year (but the VAT rate of 17.5% remained despite abolition of the Poll Tax).
The Council Tax strongly resembled the rating system that the Poll Tax had replaced. The main differences were that it was levied on capital value rather than notional rental value of a property, and that a 25% discount for single occupancy dwellings was introduced.