Folkiedave in your analogy you forget to mention that in addition to the Poll Tax the millionaire you speak of would also pay a damn sight more in income tax than the low paid worker. You also omit the fact that what Poll Tax went towards was probably of far greater benefit to the low paid worker than ever it was to the millionaire.

That is probably the most breathtaking piece of unbridled nonsense I have read in a long time.

As a percentage of income most millionaires pay less tax than the low paid worker. Let me quote an example or two. The Vestey Family who owned a huge slice of Britain's meat industry from the farms and processing plants in Argentina - through their refrigerated ships that brought the meat to Britain through to the butcher's shops that sold the meat NEVER PAID A PENNY in income tax until 1991 - through exploitation of tax loopholes not available to low-paid workers whose income is taxed at source. Their chain of butchers's shops paid £10.00 (yes that is ten pounds) on profits of £2.3 million in 1978.

One of the richest people in the UK is Sir Philp Green. The BBC's Money Programme calculated that Green and his family had 'saved themselves' £285m from their £1.2bn salary by living for a part of the year in Monaco, whose residents don't pay income tax.

They also made money by stealing land from Australian aborigines but that's another story.

Now tell me how a low-paid worker can avoid tax like that? I don't know of any Teribus but then I don't live in the cloud-cuckoo land that you do.

All local income tax mainly goes to paying wages, salaries of teachers and other local government workers. As for benefiting the low paid - in fact the money local government spends on for example cultural activities is mainly enjoyed by high income families - the people who can afford to go to heavily subsidised classical music concerts, local theatres and the like.