tax

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A contribution for the support of a government required of persons, groups, or businesses within the domain of that government.
2. n. A fee or dues levied on the members of an organization to meet its expenses.
3. n. A burdensome or excessive demand; a strain.
4. v. To place a tax on (income, property, or goods).
5. v. To exact a tax from.
6. v. Law To assess (court costs, for example).
7. v. To make difficult or excessive demands upon: a boss who taxed everyone's patience.
8. v. To make a charge against; accuse: He was taxed with failure to appear on the day appointed.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Same as collateral-inheritance tax. See collateral and death-duty.
2. To lay a burden or burdens on; make demands upon; put to a certain strain; task: as, to tax one's memory.
3. To subject to the payment of taxes; impose a tax on; levy money or other contributions from, as from subjects or citizens, to meet the expenses of government: as, to tax land, commodities, or income; to tax a people.
4. In the New Testament, to register (persons and their property) for the purpose of imposing tribute.
5. In law, to examine and allow or disallow items of charge for costs, fees, or disbursements: as, the court taxes bills of cost.
6. To accuse; charge; take to task: with of or (as now commonly) with before the thing charged.
7. To take to task; censure; blame.
8. To indulge in ridicule or satire.
9. n. A disagreeable or burdensome duty or charge; an exaction; a requisition; an oppressive demand; strain; burden; task.
10. n. An enforced proportional contribution levied on persons, property, or income, either by the authority of the state for the support of the government, and for all its public or governmental needs, or
11. n. by local authority, for general municipal purposes. In a more general sense the word includes assessments on specific properties benefited by a local improvement, for the purpose of paying expenses of that improvement. Taxes, in the stricter sense, are direct when demanded from the very persons who it is supposed as a general thing will bear their burden: as, for example, poll-taxes, land or property taxes, income taxes, taxes for keeping man-servants, carriages, or dogs. Taxes are said to be indirect when they are demanded from persons who it is supposed as a general thing will indemnify themselves at the expense of others—that is, when they are levied on commodities before they reach the consumer, and are paid by those upon whom they ultimately fall, not as taxes, but as part of the market price of the commodity (Cooley): as, for example, the taxes called customs, which are imposed on certain classes of imported goods, and those called excise duties, which are imposed on certain home manufactures and articles of inland production. In the United States all state and municipal taxes are direct, and are levied upon the assessed values of real and personal property, while the revenue required for general governmental purposes is derived from indirect taxes upon certain imports, and upon whisky, tobacco, etc. In the United Kingdom the governmental revenues are derived from both direct and indirect sources—from taxes on income, stamps, dogs, etc., from imposts on a few imported articles of consumption, especially tea, spirits, tobacco, and wines, and from excise duties. House taxes, or taxes on rental, form the largest part of the local revenues, municipal revenues being entirely raised from this source. See phrases below.
12. n. Charge; censure.
13. n. A lesson to be learned; a task.
14. n. Assessment is either the valuation of property for the purpose of its taxation;
15. n. the imposing of the tax; or.
16. n. a charge on specific real property of a share of the expense of a local improvement specially benefiting that property. Tribute views the tax as laid not for the public good, but arbitrarily for the benefit of the one levying it, especially a conqueror: as, “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.” Each of these words had its older, peculiar, or figurative uses. See definitions of the words, and also of subsidy.

Wiktionary

1. n. Money paid to the government other than for transaction-specific goods and services.
2. n. A burdensome demand.
3. v. transitive To impose and collect a tax from (a person).
4. v. transitive To impose and collect a tax on (something).
5. v. transitive To make excessive demands on.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A charge, especially a pecuniary burden which is imposed by authority.
2. n. A charge or burden laid upon persons or property for the support of a government.
3. n. Especially, the sum laid upon specific things, as upon polls, lands, houses, income, etc..
4. n. A sum imposed or levied upon the members of a society to defray its expenses.
5. n. A task exacted from one who is under control; a contribution or service, the rendering of which is imposed upon a subject.
6. n. A disagreeable or burdensome duty or charge.
7. n. obsolete Charge; censure.
8. n. obsolete A lesson to be learned; a task.
9. v. 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.
10. v. (Law) To assess, fix, or determine judicially, the amount of.
11. v. To charge; to accuse; also, to censure; -- often followed by with, rarely by of before an indirect object.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. set or determine the amount of (a payment such as a fine)
2. v. use to the limit
3. v. make a charge against or accuse
4. n. charge against a citizen's person or property or activity for the support of government
5. v. levy a tax on