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Tax vs Debt - What's the difference?

tax | debt |

As nouns the difference between tax and debt

is that tax is money paid to the government other than for transaction-specific goods and services while debt is an action, state of mind, or object one has an obligation to perform for another, adopt toward another, or give to another.

As a verb tax

is to impose and collect a tax from (a person).

tax

English

(wikipedia tax)

Noun

  • Money paid to the government other than for transaction-specific goods and services.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-17
  • , author=George Monbiot, authorlink=George Monbiot , title=Money just makes the rich suffer , volume=188, issue=23, page=19 , magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) citation , passage=In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […]  Essential public services are cut so that the rich may pay less tax . The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.}}
  • A burdensome demand.
  • a heavy tax on time or health
  • A task exacted from one who is under control; a contribution or service, the rendering of which is imposed upon a subject.
  • (obsolete) charge; censure
  • (Clarendon)
  • (obsolete) A lesson to be learned.
  • (Johnson)

    Synonyms

    * (money paid to government) impost, tribute, contribution, duty, toll, rate, assessment. exaction, custom, demand, levy

    Antonyms

    * (money paid to government) subsidy

    Hyponyms

    (types of taxes) * church tax * corporation tax * duty * estate tax * excise * excise tax * gift tax * goods and services tax * gross receipts tax * head tax * income tax * inheritance tax * land tax * poll tax * property tax * personal property tax * real property tax * sales tax * sin tax * sumptuary tax * transfer tax * use tax * utilities tax * value added tax

    Coordinate terms

    (other government revenues) * fine * license fee * penalty * seignorage * user charge

    Derived terms

    * tax collector * tax haven * tax hike * taxman * tax free * tax rise * taxes due * taxpayer

    Verb

    (es)
  • To impose and collect a tax from (a person).
  • Some think to tax the wealthy is the fairest.
  • To impose and collect a tax on (something).
  • Some think to tax wealth is destructive of a private sector.
  • To make excessive demands on.
  • * Do not tax my patience.
  • * '>citation
  • Derived terms

    * taxable * taxation

    debt

    English

    (wikipedia debt)

    Alternative forms

    * (l) (obsolete)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An action, state of mind, or object one has an obligation to perform for another, adopt toward another, or give to another.
  • * 1589 , (William Shakespeare), Henry IV, Part I , act 1, sc. 3,
  • Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt
    Of this proud king, who studies day and night
    To answer all the debt he owes to you
    Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.
  • * 1850 , (Nathaniel Hawthorne), (The Scarlet Letter) , ch. 14,
  • This long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin I have been, shall at length be paid.
  • The state or condition of owing something to another.
  • Money that one person or entity owes or is required to pay to another, generally as a result of a loan or other financial transaction.
  • * 1919 , (Upton Sinclair), Jimmie Higgins , ch. 15,
  • Bolsheviki had repudiated the four-billion-dollar debt which the government of the Tsar had contracted with the bankers.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}
  • (legal) An action at law to recover a certain specified sum of money alleged to be due.
  • (Burrill)

    Derived terms

    * bad debt * debt exchange * debt-equity ratio * debt-laden * debt of honor * domestic debt * external debt * foreign debt * in debt * national debt * technical debt