Tax

Pronunciation

• enPR: tăks, IPA: /tæks/
• Homophones: tacks
• Rhymes: -æks

Origin

From Middle English, from Anglo-Norman taxer ("to impose a tax"), from Latin taxāre, present active infinitive of taxō ("I handle”, “I censure”, “I appraise”, “I compute").

Full definition of tax

Noun

1. Money paid to the government other than for transaction-specific goods and services.
• 2013-05-17, George Monbiot, Money just makes the rich suffer, In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. …  Essential public services are cut so that the rich may pay less tax. The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.
2. A burdensome demand.a heavy tax on time or health
3. A task exacted from one who is under control; a contribution or service, the rendering of which is imposed upon a subject.
4. (obsolete) charge; censure
5. (obsolete) A lesson to be learned.

Synonyms

• (money paid to government) impost, tribute, contribution, duty, toll, rate, assessment. exaction, custom, demand, levy

Antonyms

• (money paid to government) subsidy

Hyponyms

Coordinate terms

Derived terms

Verb

1. (transitive) To impose and collect a tax from (a person).Some think to tax the wealthy is the fairest.
2. (transitive) To impose and collect a tax on (something).Some think to tax wealth is destructive of a private sector.
3. (transitive) To make excessive demands on.
• Do not tax my patience.
• But patent applications are increasingly accompanied by volumes and volumes of data on DVD, which taxes the resources of the patent office.

Derived terms

• taxable
• taxation