A Quick Tip by DonnaL1

To tax (from the Latin taxo; "I estimate", which in turn is from tangō; "I touch"). 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). 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 (as communist governments often do when they sieze power). From the view of economists, a tax is a non-penal, yet compulsory ...