tax

A forced burden, charge, exaction, imposition, or contribution assessed in accordance with some reasonable rule of apportionment by authority of a sovereign state upon the persons or property within its jurisdiction to provide public revenue for the support of the government, the administration of the law, or the payment of public expenses. 51 Am J1st Tax § 3. Any payment exacted by the state or its municipal subdivisions as a contribution to ward the cost of maintaining governmental functions, where the special benefit derived from their performance is merged in the general benefit. State ex rel. Fargo v Wetz, 40 ND 299, 168 NW 835, 5 ALR 731. A charge upon persons or property imposed by or under authority of the legislature for public purposes. Yosemite Lumber Co. v Industrial Acci. Com. 187 Cal 774, 204 P 226, 20 ALR 994. Taxes are the enforced proportional contribution of persons and property, levied by the authority of the state for the support of the government and for all public needs, and so long as there exist public needs just so long exists the liability of the individual to contribute thereto. The obligation of the individual to the state is continuous and proportioned to the extent of the public wants. Patton v Brady, 184 US 608, 619, 46 L Ed 713, 719, 22 S Ct 493. A tax is not regarded as a debt in the ordinary sense of the term, for the reason that a tax does not depend upon the consent of the taxpayer, and there is no express or implied contract to pay taxes. Taxes are not contracts between party and party, either express or implied; they are the positive acts of the government, through its various agents, binding upon the inhabitants and enforceable against them without reference to their personal or individual consent to be bound. Tax Com. v National Malleable Casting Co. 1 I 1 Ohio St 117, 144 NE 604, 35 ALR 1448. The word "taxes," as used in the priority provision of the Bankruptcy Act, is not to be construed in a limited sense, but as including all obligations imposed by the state or political subdivisions under their respective powers for governmental or public purposes. It includes any pecuniary burden laid upon individuals or property for the purpose of supporting the government or undertakings authorized by it, irrespective of the name given the imposition, or the method of collection. No distinction is observed between impositions under the police power and impositions under the taxing power. 9 Am J2d Bankr § 543. The difference between a tax and a penalty is sometimes difficult to define, and yet the consequences of the distinction in the required method of their collection often are important. Where the sovereign enacting the law has power to impose both tax and penalty, the difference between revenue production and mere regulation maybe immaterial, but not so when one sovereign can impose a tax only, and the power of regulation rests in another. They do not lose their character as taxes because of the incidental motive. But there comes a time in the extension of the penalizing features of the so-called tax when it loses its character as such and becomes a mere penalty, with the characteristics of regulation and punishment. Bailey v Drexel Furniture Co. 259 US 20, 66 L Ed 817, 42 S Ct 449. See special assessment.