income tax

American  

noun

• income taxes
  plural

1. a tax levied on incomes, especially an annual government tax on personal incomes.

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income tax British  

noun

1. a personal tax, usually progressive, levied on annual income subject to certain deductions

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• income taxes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of income tax

First recorded in 1790–1800

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

income tax

Add the fact that state income tax is lower in Indiana, and that her car insurance and energy bills have also fallen, and Brianna says she is $600 a month better off.

From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026

Ed, now 61, was especially eager to move to a state with no personal income tax.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026

Your mother would not be restricted by the terms of the 529 plan, which comes with a 10% penalty and ordinary income tax if the funds are withdrawn for something other than educational expenses.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026

Reform estimates that increasing the threshold by £2,430 would save most taxpayers £500 a year and 2.9 million people would stop paying income tax altogether.

From BBC ● Sep. 5, 2026

She clipped the receipt for the box of chalk to her ledger book so that she could list it in the column of itemized deductions that always accompanied her income tax returns.

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole