Tax
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 301 U.S. 495 - Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co. · 1937Most cited · 1,735 citing opinions
A tax is not an assessment of benefits. It is, as we have said, a means of distributing the burden of the cost of government. The only benefit to which the taxpayer is constitutionally entitled is that derived from his enjoyment of the privileges of living in an organized society, established and safeguarded by the devotion of taxes to public purposes.
How the Supreme Court has restated “Tax”
Each Supreme Court definition of “Tax,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “Tax”
Court decisions citing the 12 opinions that defined “Tax” — 7,056 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 12 definitions, chronological · 1796–1942
- ORIGINAL
The term taxes, is generical, and was made use of to vest in Congress plenary authority in all cases of taxation. The general division of taxes is into direct and indirect.... For the term tax is the genus, and includes, [capitation; duties, imposts, and excises; all other classes of an indirect kind].
as genus
A tax, in its essential characteristics, is not a debt nor in the nature of a debt. A tax is an impost levied by authority of government upon its citizens, or subjects, for the support of the State. It is not founded on contract or agreement. It operates in invitum.
A tax is understood to be a charge, a pecuniary burden, for the support of government. It is not taxation that government should take from one the profits and gains of another. That is taxation which compels one to pay for the support of the government from his own gains and of his own property.
Generally speaking, a tax is a pecuniary burden laid upon individuals or property for the purpose of supporting the government. ... It is required to be paid by the corporation after organization in invitum. The amount is fixed by the statute, to be paid on the outstanding capital stock of the corporation each year, and capable of being enforced by action against the will of the taxpayer. ... 'Taxes are not debts. ... Debts are obligations for the payment of money founded upon contract, express or implied. Taxes are imposts levied for the support of the government, or for some special purpose authorized by it. The consent of the taxpayer is not necessary to their enforcement. They operate in invitum.
defined; distinct from debt
A tax is an enforced contribution for the payment of public expenses. It is laid by some rule of apportionment according to which the persons or property taxed share the public burden, and whether taxation operates upon all within the state, or upon those of a given class or locality, its essential nature is the same.
the use of the word 'tax' in imposing a financial burden does not prove conclusively that the burden imposed is a tax, and that, when it appears from its very nature that the imposition prescribed is a penalty solely, it must be treated in law as such
distinguished from penalty
an enforced contribution to provide for the support of government
Every tax is in some measure regulatory. To some extent it interposes an economic impediment to the activity taxed as compared with others not taxed. But a tax is not any the less a tax because it has a regulatory effect, and it has long been established that an Act of Congress which on its face purports to be an exercise of the taxing power is not any the less so because the tax is burdensome or tends to restrict or suppress the thing taxed.
A tax is an exaction.
those pecuniary burdens laid upon individuals or their property, regardless of their consent, for the purpose of defraying the expenses of government or of undertakings authorized by it
a tax for purposes of § 64, sub. a(4) includes any 'pecuniary burden laid upon individuals or property for the purpose of supporting the government,' by whatever name it may be called