INTRODUCTION
Tax has been variously defined over the years. These definitions, when looked at as a whole gives a more comprehensive picture of the phenomenon as opposed to a single definition. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word tax' refers to a compulsory contribution to the support of government levied on persons, property, income, commodities, transactions, etc, now at a fixed rate mostly proportionate to the amount on which the contribution is levied. While this serves in crude terms to tell us what a tax is, it is however deficient in the sense that it does not reveal the purpose of taxation. We however find more scholarly definitions in decided cases. For instance, in MATTHEWS v. CHICORY MARKETING BOARD it was held that a tax is:
"A compulsory exertion of money by a public authority for public purposes, or taxation is raising money for the purpose of government by means of contribution of individual persons."
In US v. BUTLER it was opined per......
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Approximate Word Count: 2957
Approximate Pages: 12 (260 words per double-spaced page) |