TAX • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Tax

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/tæks/ Listen

noun

Tax n.

A charge, especially a pecuniary burden which is imposed by authority. Specifically:

(a)

A charge or burden laid upon persons or property for the support of a government. "A farmer of taxes is, of all creditors, proverbially the most rapacious."

(b)

Especially, the sum laid upon specific things, as upon polls, lands, houses, income, etc.; as, a land tax; a window tax; a tax on carriages, and the like. Note: Taxes are annual or perpetual, direct or indirect, etc.

(c)

A sum imposed or levied upon the members of a society to defray its expenses.

A task exacted from one who is under control; a contribution or service, the rendering of which is imposed upon a subject.

A disagreeable or burdensome duty or charge; as, a heavy tax on time or health.

Charge; censure. (Obs.)

A lesson to be learned; a task. (Obs.)

Tax cart, a spring cart subject to a low tax. (Eng.)

Synonyms: Impost; tribute; contribution; duty; toll; rate; assessment; exaction; custom; demand.

verb

Tax v. t. (past & past part. taxed; pres. part. taxing)

To subject to the payment of a tax or taxes; to impose a tax upon; to lay a burden upon; especially, to exact money from for the support of government. "We are more heavily taxed by our idleness, pride, and folly than we are taxed by government."

(Law) To assess, fix, or determine judicially, the amount of; as, to tax the cost of an action in court.

To charge; to accuse; also, to censure; often followed by with, rarely by of before an indirect object; as, to tax a man with pride. "I tax you, you elements, with unkindness." "Men's virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes." "Fear not now that men should tax thine honor."

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Etymology of 'Tax'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tax" Quotes from Famous Books

... ended as it began with war on France and Scotland, but with little success. The government was put to dire straits to raise money. A forced loan of 10 per cent. on property was exacted in 1542 and repudiated by law the next year. An income tax rising from four pence to two shillings in the pound on goods and from eight pence to three shillings on revenue from land, was imposed. Crown lands were sold or mortgaged. The last and most disastrous expedient was the debasement of the coinage, the old equivalent of the modern issue of ...

— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... the solution of it has been repeatedly attempted, with no other result than to crowd our lunatic asylums with the would-be solvers. Hence, after fruitless attempts to suppress such investigations indirectly by making them liable to a heavy tax, the Legislature, in comparatively recent times, absolutely prohibited them. I—alas, I alone in Flatland—know now only too well the true solution of this mysterious problem; but my knowledge cannot be made intelligible to a single one of my countrymen; and ...

— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott

... John, resentfully, "we'd changed our State constitution so's to forbid the levy of any school tax by a county or township except on ...

— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... raised by a charitable contribution; and, though this way may seem uncertain, yet so merciful are the inclinations of that people, that they are plentifully supplied by it; but in other places public revenues are set aside for them, or there is a constant tax or poll-money raised for their maintenance. In some places they are set to no public work, but every private man that has occasion to hire workmen goes to the market-places and hires them of the public, a little lower than he would do a freeman. If they go lazily about their task he ...

— Utopia • Thomas More

... "With hut-tax, traders' game and mining licenses, not more than fourteen thousand rupees; every penny of it ear-marked ...

— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling

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