Duty is a levy on goods. Example: Customs duty, excise duty etc. [for duty, generally prior payment is important]
Tax is a levy on "other than goods". Example: Income tax,service tax, sales tax etc.
You may have a doubt that sales tax means it is a tax on goods. Actually this inference is wrong. Sales tax is a tax on sale transaction or purchase transaction and not on goods.
20 November 2008
A tax is a financial charge or other levy imposed on an individual or a legal entity by a state or a functional equivalent of a state (for example, secessionist movements or revolutionary movements). 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 labour equivalent (often but not always unpaid). A tax may be defined as a "pecuniary burden laid upon individuals or property to support the government […] a payment exacted by legislative authority."[1] 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, tallage, gabel, impost, duty, custom, excise, subsidy, aid, supply, or other name."[1] In modern taxation systems, taxes are levied in money, but in-kind and corvée taxation are characteristic of traditional or pre-capitalist states and their functional equivalents. The method of taxation and the government expenditure of taxes raised is 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)[2] may be imposed on the non-paying entity or individual.
20 November 2008
Duty (from "due," that which is owing, O. Fr. deu, did, past participle of devoir; Lat. debere, debitum; cf. "debt") is a term that conveys a sense of moral commitment to someone or something. The moral commitment is the sort that results in action, and it is not a matter of passive feeling or mere recognition. When someone recognizes a duty, that person commits himself/herself to the cause involved without considering the self-interested courses of actions that may have been relevant previously. This is not to suggest that living a life of duty precludes one from the best sort of life, but duty does involve some sacrifice of immediate self-interest. Cicero is an early philosopher who acknowledged this possibility. He discusses duty in his work “On Duty." He suggests that duties can come from four different sources: It is a result of being human It is a result of one's particular place in life (your family, your country, your job) It is a result of one's personality One's own moral expectations for oneself can generate duties From the root idea of obligation to serve or give something in return, involved in the conception of duty, have sprung various derivative uses of the word; thus it is used of the services performed by a minister of a church, by a soldier, or by any employee or servant. Many schools of thought have debated the idea of duty. While many assert mankind's duty on their own terms, some philosophers have absolutely rejected a sense of duty
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