To tax (from the Latin taxo; "I estimate", which in turn is from tangō; "I touch") is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law.

Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities. Taxes consist of direct tax or indirect tax, and may be paid in money or as its labour equivalent (often but not always unpaid labour). A tax may be defined as a "pecuniary burden laid upon individuals or property owners to support the government […] a payment exacted by legislative authority." A tax "is not a voluntary payment or donation, but an enforced contribution, exacted pursuant to legislative authority" and is "any contribution imposed by government […] whether under the name of toll, tribute, tallage, gabel, impost, duty, custom, excise, subsidy, aid, supply, or other name."

The legal definition and the economic definition of taxes differ in that economists do not consider many transfers to governments to be taxes. For example, some transfers to the public sector are comparable to prices. Examples include tuition at public universities and fees for utilities provided by local governments. Governments also obtain resources by creating money (e.g., printing bills and minting coins), through voluntary gifts (e.g., contributions to public universities and museums),by imposing penalties (e.g., traffic fines), by borrowing, and by confiscating wealth. From the view of economists, a tax is a non-penal, yet compulsory transfer of resources from the private to the public sector levied on a basis of predetermined criteria and without reference to specific benefit received.

In modern taxation systems, taxes are levied in money, but in-kind and corvée taxation are characteristic of traditional or pre-capitalist states and their functional equivalents. The method of taxation and the government expenditure of taxes raised is often highly debated in politics and economics. Tax collection is performed by a government agency such as Canada Revenue Agency, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the United States, or Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in the UK. When taxes are not fully paid, civil penalties (such as fines or forfeiture) or criminal penalties (such as incarceration) may be imposed on the non-paying entity or individual.

Taxation

To tax (from the latin taxare: to estimate, which in turn is from tangere: to touch) is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon an individual or legal entity by a state or the functional equivalent of a state.

Sourced

• There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist — the taxidermist leaves the hide.
  • Mortimer Caplan, American bureaucrat, Director of the IRS. Time magazine, 1st February 1963

• The law before us, my lords, seems to be the effect of that practice of which it is intended likewise to be the cause, and to be dictated by the liquor of which it so effectually promotes the use; for surely it never before was conceived by any man entrusted with the administration of public affairs, to raise taxes by the destruction of the people.
  • Philip Dormer Stanhope, from a speech in the House of Lords (Feb. 22, 1743), on the Gin Licensing Act, recorded in The Parliamentary History of England to the Year 1803, vol. XII.

• To please universally was the object of his life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
  • Edmund Burke, speech on American taxation, House of Commons (April 19, 1774); The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, ed. Paul Langford, vol. 2, p. 454 (1981)

• Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
  • Benjamin Franklin, Letter to M. Leroy (Nov. 13, 1789). Complete Works, vol. 10, ed. John Bigelow (1887-1888)

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Sat Sep 4 13:00:29 2010