Hearth less than 20 shillings a year and those who paid neither church nor poor rates. Also exempt were charitable institutions such as schools and almshouses, and industrial hearths with the exception of smiths' forges and bakers' ovens. The returns were lodged with the Clerk of the Peace between 1662 and 1688. A revision of the Act in 1664 made the tax payable by all who had more than two chimneys. The tax was abolished by William III in 1689 and the last collection was for Lady Day of that year. It was abolished in Scotland in 1690. Hearth tax records
History of the English fiscal system the above - at any rate in its nature as a direct impost - was the poll or capitation tax. Financial pressure at the close of Edward III's reign (1377) led to the adoption of a tax of fourpence per head on all persons in the kingdom (mendicants and persons under fourteen years being excepted). This "tallage of groats", which seems to be derived by analogy from the hearth money for Peter's Pence, was followed by the graduated poll taxes of 1379 and 1380, the former ranging in scale from ten marks (£6 13s. 4d.) imposed on royal dukes and