税收是国家凭借政治权力或公共权力对社会产品进行分配的形式。税收是满足社会公共需要的分配形式。税收具有非直接偿还性（无偿性）、强制义务性（强制性）、法定规范性（固定性）。纳税即税收中的纳税人的执行过程，是根据国家各种税法的规定，按照一定的比例，把集体或个人收入的一部分缴纳给国家。那么，纳税英文怎么说呢？
What is tax payment
什么是纳税
To tax (from the Latin taxo; “I estimate”) is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law.
Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities. Taxes consist of direct tax or indirect tax, and may be paid in money or as its labor equivalent (often but not always unpaid labor). A tax may be defined as a “pecuniary burden laid upon individuals or property owners to support the government.” A tax “is not a voluntary payment or donation, but an enforced contribution, exacted pursuant to legislative authority” and is “any contribution imposed by government whether under the name of toll, tribute, tillage, gable, impost, duty, custom, excise, subsidy, aid, supply, or other name.”
The legal definition and the economic definition of taxes differ in that economists do not consider many transfers to governments to be taxes. For example, some transfers to the public sector are comparable to prices. Examples include tuition at public universities and fees for utilities provided by local governments. Governments also obtain resources by creating money (e.g., printing bills and minting coins), through voluntary gifts (e.g., contributions to public universities and museums), by imposing penalties (e.g., traffic fines), by borrowing, and by confiscating wealth. From the view of economists, a tax is a non-penal, yet compulsory transfer of resources from the private to the public sector levied on a basis of predetermined criteria and without reference to specific benefit received.
In modern taxation systems, taxes are levied in money; but, in-kind and corvée taxation is characteristic of traditional or pre-capitalist states and their functional equivalents. The method of taxation and the government expenditure of taxes raised are often highly debated in politics and economics. Tax collection is performed by a government agency such as Canada Revenue Agency, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the United States, or Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in the UK. When taxes are not fully paid, civil penalties (such as fines or forfeiture) or criminal penalties (such as incarceration) may be imposed on the non-paying entity or individual.
Taxation has four main purposes or effects: Revenue, Redistribution, Repricing, and Representation. The main purpose is revenue: taxes raise money to spend on armies, roads, schools and hospitals, and on more indirect government functions like market regulation or legal systems.
A second is redistribution. Normally, this means transferring wealth from the richer sections of society to poorer sections.
A third purpose of taxation is repricing. Taxes are levied to address externalities; for example, tobacco is taxed to discourage smoking, and a carbon tax discourages use of carbon-based fuels.
A fourth, consequential effect of taxation in its historical setting has been representation. The American revolutionary slogan “no taxation without representation” implied this: rulers’ tax citizens and citizens demand accountability from their rulers as the other part of this bargain. Studies have shown that direct taxation (such as income taxes) generates the greatest degree of accountability and better governance, while indirect taxation tends to have smaller effects.
个税调整方案由全国人大常委会（NPC Standing Committee）进行初次审议。目前我国实行的是累进税制（progressive taxation），因此会出现“级距”，也就是各级税率所对应的额度（收入）范围。由于通胀（inflation），不少人的薪酬被推高至较高税收（tax bracket），这就是所谓的税级攀升（bracket creep）。
