The poll tax: microanalysis on the materials of the Pereslavl’-Ryazansky county in the middle of the XVIII

The article analyzes three groups of factors that were important in the payment of the poll tax in the landlords’ estates and villages in one of the central districts of Russia in the middle of the XVIII century. High rate of tax collection depended on the role of a landowner who was responsible for it, on the market development and on the use of soft measures of fiscal coercion. The combination of these factors supplied the high efficiency of tax collection despite the fact that the tax burden if the poll tax in Russia compared with the direct taxation in England and France was significant (11 %).