Double taxation is the levying of tax by two or more jurisdictions on the same declared income (in the case of income taxes), asset (in the case of capital taxes), or financial transaction (in the case of sales taxes). This double liability is often mitigated by tax treaties between countries.
The term 'double taxation' is additionally used, particularly in the USA, to refer to the fact that corporate profits are taxed and the shareholders of the corporation are (usually) subject to personal taxation when they receive dividends or distributions of those profits. This use of the term 'double taxation' is politically freighted since it selectively concatenates, out of all describable sequences of taxation, two particular taxes on two particular transactions.
Read more about Double Taxation: International Double Taxation Agreements, European Union Savings Taxation, India
Famous quotes containing the words double and/or taxation:
“Go; and if that word have not quite killed thee,
Ease me with death by bidding me got too.
Oh, if it have, let my word work on me,
And a just office on a murderer do.
Except it be too late to kill me so,
Being double dead: going, and bidding go.”
—John Donne (1572–1631)
“Every diminution of the public burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise increased power and furnishes to all the members of our happy confederacy new motives for patriotic affection and support.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)