One who pays a tax or the taxes generally; one who is liable to taxation; in U.S. including local rate-payers.
1781. trans. Necker’s Finances of France, I. 83. The code of the stamp-duties, and of the registering of the acts, is grown to such an enormous bulk, that the tax payers often are perplexed to know what they ought to pay, nor do the Collectors well know what to charge.
1816. J. Kennedy, in A. McKay, Hist. Kilmarnock (1880), 229. Only 2,700 have a right of voting for members of Parliament;… 197,300, although tax-payers, directly or indirectly, having no more right of voting than if they were an importation of slaves from Africa.
1853. Inaug. Address Mayor of Boston (U. S.). [Of] interest to every water taker and tax payer in the City.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xix. IV. 324. Some part … might, with advantage to the proprietor, to the taxpayer and to the State, be attracted into the Treasury.
1878. Jevons, Prim. Pol. Econ., xvi. 130. To demand a tax when the taxpayer is likely to be able to pay it.
So Taxpaying sb., the payment of taxes; a., that pays taxes (or rates); subject to taxation.
1819. G. Ensor, Radical Reform, 243. Were I to choose between the householding and the direct tax-paying schemes, I should prefer the latter for many reasons.
1845. W. Phillips, Can Abolitionists Vote, etc.? 33. The difference between voting and tax-paying is simply this: I may do an act right in itself, though I know some evil will result.
1851. Inaug. Address Mayor of Boston (U. S.). The sale would cause discontent … to a very large number of tax-paying citizens.
1882. T. Hughes, in Macm. Mag., XLV. 281. Doing his share of fighting, taxpaying, keeping the peace.
1894. Pop. Sci. Monthly, XLV. 719. Formerly they were checked by the rage of the taxpaying classes.
