Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The State Tax System of Washington
As the term is here used, a tax is a compulsory contribution of the wealth of a person or body of persons for the service of the public powers,2 levied without regard to any particular service to, or on account of, the contributor. Strictly, the word wealth should be held to include services. Of these the most important in this country, at least in times of peace, is jury duty. In our consideration of the tax system, however, we shall omit all reference to contributions of services, confining our attention to those forms of taxation that are paid into the public treasury. A fee differs from a tax in that it is imposed to defray, in whole or in part, the expense involved in some governmental action which is occasioned by the person from whom the payment is required or confers upon him a special benefit. As examples of fees may be cited the payments required for inspection of various kinds, for the issu ance of certificates, and for some of the services rendered by the courts. In definitions of the fee the idea is commonly expressed that it is a payment for a special benefit. As regards some kinds of fees this is legitimate enough; but there are others of such a character as to make it necessary to point out that the special benefit may be such by legal fiction or arbitrarily so considered. In any event the payment should not exceed the expense involved. If it does it should be regarded as part fee and part tax. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
