Development of the system of public duties. A legal and fiscal study

Tax is a complex legal and economic category, conditioning the functioning of the state, affecting the entire economic circulation. The economic significance of the tax is related to the change in the income and property situation of the subjects paying the tribute. Payment of tax influences the decisions made by economic agents in the sphere of savings, consumer spending or economic decisions. Taxes are the primary means of collecting public revenue and financing expenditures. It should be emphasized that, from the point of view of the science of finance, any economic, legal phenomenon that has all the above-mentioned characteristics is a tax, even if the name used by the legislator indicates a completely different nature of the legal and economic relationship, e.g. customs duty, fee, contribution, "voluntary payment", etc. There is a consensus in the literature that a tax should be characterized by six features: gratuitousness, compulsory, non-refundable, monetary form, generality and unilateral imposition.