Taxes can either be part of a direct tax or indirect tax, and may be paid in cash or as corvée labor (taxes in the form of labor). In modern times, particularly in capitalist and democratic taxation systems, taxes are levied in money, however, taxation in kind and corvée taxation is characteristic of the more retro traditional or pre-capitalist states and their functional equivalents.

The collection of taxes is usually taken up by a governmental agency such as the Internal Revenue Service in the United States. So long as it is a modern society and a buoyant economy that an individual is part of, there is no scope for escaping taxes. If an individual is found not paying taxes as per the guidelines laid down by the government, almost instantly, penalties such as fines, forfeiture, and imprisonment are carried out against the non-paying entity or individual.

These penalties may also be usually carried out by a governmental agency, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US. In most modern industrialized countries of the present day world, when an individual fails to pay his government the taxes that that government demands of him, it will ultimately result in his imprisonment at the hands of the state. Such a stance is adopted by the authorities in order to set a trend and show others what can happen to them if they are to evade taxes, which is considered a crime as per the penal code of most governing bodies of the world.

However, this being a major factor involving the individual having to give up a substantial part of his income away is reason for many a debate on the different aspects of Taxation. The means by which taxation is carried out, and the productive causes to which the funds raised through taxation should be put, are often a matter of hot debate in politics and economics, so discussions on taxation are frequently unpleasant.

Oct.14	Corporations avoid taxes – How they do it?
	The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.