Taxes
A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax compliance refers to policy actions and individual behavior aimed at ensuring that taxpayers are paying the right amount of tax at the right time and securing the correct tax allowances and tax relief. The first known taxation occurred in Ancient Egypt around 3000–2800 BC. Taxes consist of direct or indirect taxes and may be paid in money or as labor equivalent. All countries have a tax system in place to pay for public, common societal, or agreed national needs and for the functions of government. Some countries levy a flat percentage rate of taxation on personal annual income, but most scale taxes are progressive based on brackets of yearly income amounts. Most countries charge a tax on an individual's income and corporate income. Cou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Property Tax
A property tax (whose rate is expressed as a percentage or per mille, also called ''millage'') is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or Wealth tax, net wealth, taxes on the change of ownership of property through Inheritance tax, inheritance or Gift tax, gift and Financial transaction tax, taxes on financial and capital transactions" (see: ), but this article only covers taxes on realty. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located. This can be a national government, a federated state, a county or other Region, geographical region, or a Local government, municipality. Multiple jurisdictions may tax the same property. Often a property tax is levied on real estate. It may be imposed annually or at the time of a real estate transaction, such as in real estate transfer tax. This tax can be contrasted with a rent tax, which is based ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Environmental Tax
An environmental tax, ecotax (short for ecological taxation), or green tax is a tax levied on activities which are considered to be harmful to the environment and is intended to promote environmentally friendly alternatives via economic incentives. One notable example is a carbon tax. Such a policy can complement or avert the need for regulatory ( command and control) approaches. Often, an ecotax policy proposal may attempt to maintain overall tax revenue by proportionately reducing other taxes (e.g. taxes on wages and income or property taxes); such proposals are known as a green tax shift towards ecological taxation. Ecotaxes address the failure of free markets to consider environmental impacts. Ecotaxes are examples of Pigouvian taxes, which are taxes on goods whose production or consumption creates external costs or externalities. An example might be philosopher Thomas Pogge's proposed Global Resources Dividend. Categories of Environmental Taxes The term, environmenta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Indirect Tax
An indirect tax (such as a sales tax, per unit tax, value-added tax (VAT), excise tax, consumption tax, or tariff) is a tax that is levied upon goods and services before they reach the customer who ultimately pays the indirect tax as a part of market price of the good or service purchased. Alternatively, if the entity who pays taxes to the tax collecting authority does not suffer a corresponding reduction in income, i.e., the effect and tax incidence are not on the same entity meaning that tax can be shifted or passed on, then the tax is indirect. An indirect tax is collected by an intermediary (such as a retail store) from the person (such as the consumer) who pays the tax included in the price of a purchased good. The intermediary later files a tax return and forwards the tax proceeds to government with the return. In this sense, the term indirect tax is contrasted with a direct tax, which is collected directly by government from the persons (legal or natural) on whom it is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wealth Tax
A wealth tax (also called a capital tax or equity tax) is a tax on an entity's holdings of assets or an entity's net worth. This includes the total value of personal assets, including cash, bank deposits, real estate, assets in insurance and pension plans, ownership of unincorporated businesses, financial securities, and personal trusts (a one-off levy on wealth is a capital levy).Edward N. Wolff, "Time for a Wealth Tax?"''Boston Review'', Feb–Mar 1996 (recommending a net wealth tax for the US of 0.05% for the first $100,000 in assets to 0.3% for assets over $1,000,000/ref> Typically, wealth taxation often involves the exclusion of an individual's liabilities, such as mortgages and other debts, from their total assets. Accordingly, this type of taxation is frequently denoted as a net wealth tax. , five of the 36 OECD countries had a personal wealth tax (down from 12 in 1990). Proponents often argue that wealth taxes can reduce income inequality by making it harder for i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pigouvian Tax
A Pigouvian tax (also spelled Pigovian tax) is a tax on any Market (economics), market activity that generates negative externalities (i.e., external costs incurred by third parties that are not included in the market price). It is a method that tries to internalize negative externalities to achieve the Nash equilibrium and optimal Pareto efficiency. The tax is normally set by the government to correct an undesirable or inefficient Economic equilibrium, market outcome (a market failure) and does so by being set equal to the external marginal cost of the negative externalities. In the presence of negative externalities, social cost includes private cost and external cost caused by negative externalities. This means the social cost of a market activity is not covered by the private cost of the activity. In such a case, the market outcome is not Economic efficiency, efficient and may lead to over-consumption of the product. Often-cited examples of negative externalities are environme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sales Tax
A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase. When a tax on goods or services is paid to a governing body directly by a consumer, it is usually called a use tax. Often laws provide for the Tax exemption, exemption of certain goods or services from sales and use tax, such as food, education, and medicines. A value-added tax (VAT) collected on goods and services is related to a sales tax. See Value-added tax#Comparison with sales tax, Comparison with sales tax for key differences. Types Conventional or retail sales tax is levied on the sale of a good to its final good, final end-user and is charged every time that item is sold retail. Sales to businesses that later resell the goods are not charged the tax. A purchaser who is not an end-user is usually issued a "resale certificate" by the taxing authority and required to provide the cer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Payroll Tax
Payroll taxes are taxes imposed on employers or employees. They are usually calculated as a percentage of the salaries that employers pay their employees. By law, some payroll taxes are the responsibility of the employee and others fall on the employer, but almost all economists agree that the true economic incidence of a payroll tax is unaffected by this distinction, and falls largely or entirely on workers in the form of lower wages. Because payroll taxes fall exclusively on wages and not on returns to financial or physical investments, payroll taxes may contribute to underinvestment in human capital, such as higher education. National payroll tax systems Australia The Australian federal government ( ATO) requires withholding tax on employment income (payroll taxes of the first type), under a system known as pay-as-you-go (PAYG). The individual states impose payroll taxes of the second type. Bermuda In Bermuda, payroll tax accounts for over a third of the annual nation ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Direct Tax
Although the actual definitions vary between jurisdictions, in general, a direct tax is a tax imposed upon a person or property as distinct from a tax imposed upon a transaction, which is described as an indirect tax. There is a distinction between direct and indirect taxes depending on whether the tax payer is the actual taxpayer or if the amount of tax is supported by a third party, usually a client. The term may be used in economic and political analyses, and may have legal implications in some jurisdictions. In the United States of America, the term has special constitutional significance because of two provisions in the U.S. Constitution that any ''direct taxes'' imposed by the national government be apportioned among the states on the basis of population. It is also significant in the European Union, where direct taxation remains the sole responsibility of member states. General meaning In general, a direct tax is one imposed upon an individual person (juristic person, jurist ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flat Tax
A flat tax (short for flat-rate tax) is a tax with a single rate on the taxable amount, after accounting for any deductions or exemptions from the tax base. It is not necessarily a fully proportional tax. Implementations are often progressive due to exemptions, or regressive in case of a maximum taxable amount. There are various tax systems that are labeled "flat tax" even though they are significantly different. The defining characteristic is the existence of only one tax rate other than zero, as opposed to multiple non-zero rates that vary depending on the amount subject to taxation. A flat tax system is usually discussed in the context of an income tax, where progressivity is common, but it may also apply to taxes on consumption, property or transfers. Major categories Flat tax proposals differ in how the subject of the tax is defined. True flat-rate income tax A true flat-rate tax is a system of taxation where one tax rate is applied to all personal income with ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Inheritance Tax
International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax. An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. However, this distinction is not always observed; for example, the UK's "inheritance tax" is a tax on the assets of the deceased, and strictly speaking is therefore an estate tax. Inheritance taxes vary widely between countries. History There was a steep increase in the number of countries that implemented inheritance taxes throughout the 19th and early 20th century. From 1960 onwards, inheritance taxes declined in prevalence as numerous countries repealed theirs. For historical reasons, the term "death duty" is still used colloquially (though not legally) in the UK and some Commonwealth countries. The estate tax in the United States is sometimes referred as "death tax". Other taxation applied to inherita ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Progressive Tax
A progressive tax is a tax in which the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases. The term ''progressive'' refers to the way the tax rate progresses from low to high, with the result that a taxpayer's average tax rate is less than the person's marginal tax rate. The term can be applied to individual taxes or to a tax system as a whole. Progressive taxes are imposed in an attempt to reduce the tax incidence of people with a lower wikt:ability to pay, ability to pay, as such taxes shift the incidence increasingly to those with a higher ability-to-pay. The opposite of a progressive tax is a regressive tax, such as a sales tax, where the poor pay a larger proportion of their income compared to the rich (for example, spending on groceries and food staples varies little against income, so poor pay similar to rich even while latter has much higher income). The term is frequently applied in reference to personal income taxes, in which people with lower income pay a lower percen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Income Tax
An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Taxation rates may vary by type or characteristics of the taxpayer and the type of income. The tax rate may increase as taxable income increases (referred to as graduated or progressive tax rates). The tax imposed on companies is usually known as corporate tax and is commonly levied at a flat rate. Individual income is often taxed at progressive rates where the tax rate applied to each additional unit of income increases (e.g., the first $10,000 of income taxed at 0%, the next $10,000 taxed at 1%, etc.). Most jurisdictions exempt local charitable organizations from tax. Income from investments may be taxed at different (generally lower) rates than other types of income. Credits of various sorts may be allowed that reduce tax. Some jurisdictio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |