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Why do we say excise duty and not excise tax?

Originally Answered: Why we said excise duty not said excise tax why?
Any government has many responsibilities to fulfil for development of the country and its
people. For this it needs resources and these resources come from various sources such as taxes
and duties. Thus duty and tax are two important sources of revenue for the government. Both tax
and duty are not voluntary contributions but are rather monetary burden laid upon people to
support the functioning of a government. Money collected through duty and tax is used by the
governments for various purposes such as the expenditure incurred on maintaining law and
order, public works such as building roads and bridges, hospitals and schools, public
transportation, pensions, social benefits for the people, paying salaries to government employees
and nation’s security.

Duty
Duty is a type of tax that is levied upon goods imported from another country. It is also levied
upon goods manufactured within the country such as excise duty. The word duty is mostly used
in respect of goods such as custom duty, import duty, excise duty and so forth. Duty is levied
only on goods and not on individuals. The most common example of duty is custom duty which
is an indirect tax levied upon goods that are purchased from foreign countries and the buyer has
to pay tax on them when they enter the country. Similarly, duty that is imposed upon goods
going out of the country is called export duty.

Tax
Taxes are levied by a government to fulfill its obligations towards the citizens. They are the
backbone of all the revenues generated by any government. Thus the money collected by the
government from the private sector comes within the purview of taxes which includes duties.
Taxes are obligatory and not involuntary which means that a person is punishable by law if he
fails to pay his taxes.

Taxes can be direct or indirect such as income tax which is a direct tax and VAT which is an
indirect tax.

Differences between Duty and Tax

- Both duty and tax are the revenues generated by a government for its effective functioning.
Duty in broader terms is a kind of tax only. But there are differences between the two entities.
- Duty is levied upon goods only, whereas tax is levied on both goods and individuals.
- Tax is a term used in respect of income such as property tax, wealth tax, income tax etc,
whereas duty is used in terms of goods only such as customs duty, excise duty.
- Duty is generally a tax levied on good going out or coming inside a country. Duties are
sometimes referred to as border taxes.
- Higher duties are levied on some categories of products to discourage people from using them.
Taxes are mostly progressive in nature.