Definition
Taxable has two distinct legal meanings that operate in entirely separate contexts:
1. Subject to taxation. A person, entity, or item of property is taxable when law imposes on it a liability to be assessed and required to contribute a share of a tax. Taxable persons are sometimes called "taxables." Taxable property is property that may be assessed for purposes of a tax levy — real or personal property that falls within the scope of a taxing authority's power and is not shielded by exemption.
2. Legally chargeable as costs. In litigation, taxable costs are those litigation expenses that a court is authorized to assess against a losing party (or, in some contexts, a prevailing party). Not every expense incurred in litigation is taxable; only those categories of costs expressly permitted by statute, rule, or court order qualify. The taxation of costs is performed by the clerk of court or a designated officer who reviews a bill of costs and strikes items that are not legally allowable.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Something on which tax must be paid.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Capable of being taxed; liable by law to the assessment of taxes. Also, legally chargeable by a court against a plaintiff or defendant as costs.
Webster's 1913 is unusual in that it captures both legal meanings — taxation and litigation costs — more completely than most common-language definitions. The gap worth flagging is narrower than with many terms: ordinary usage today focuses almost exclusively on the revenue-taxation sense, causing researchers to miss that taxable has a well-established and entirely independent procedural meaning in litigation. A historical source using "taxable" in reference to a lawsuit is almost certainly discussing costs, not a tax.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Taxable income: The portion of gross income remaining after applicable deductions, exclusions, and exemptions, on which income tax is calculated. A more specific and technically bounded concept than taxable property or taxable persons generally.
Taxable estate: For estate and inheritance tax purposes, the value of a decedent's estate after allowable deductions, subject to the applicable tax.
Taxable costs: Litigation expenses formally allowed by statute or rule to be assessed and recovered from the opposing party. Governed by procedural rules (e.g., Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d) in federal practice) rather than tax law.
Taxable situs: The jurisdictional location of property for purposes of determining which taxing authority may lawfully impose a tax on it. Particularly significant for intangible property.
Why It Matters in Research
The dual meaning is the central research trap. Legal databases and historical sources use "taxable" freely in both the taxation and the litigation-costs senses, and context does not always make the distinction immediately obvious. A nineteenth-century equity opinion discussing "taxable costs" has nothing to do with revenue law; a tax treatise discussing "taxable property" has nothing to do with court procedure. Researchers working across doctrinal lines — say, examining fee-shifting in a regulatory context — must be alert to which meaning a source is using.
In historical sources, the taxation sense is heavily shaped by the boundaries of sovereign power. Whether a person or item of property was taxable often turned on constitutional limits (the reach of state taxing authority over nonresidents, the immunity of federal instrumentalities from state taxation, and similar questions). Findings on taxability in early American law may reflect constitutional doctrine that has since shifted, making it risky to carry historical conclusions forward without checking whether the underlying doctrine has changed.
The litigation-costs sense evolved alongside the development of procedural codes. Under older common-law practice, the items allowable as taxable costs were narrow; modern fee-shifting statutes have expanded (and in some areas complicated) the landscape considerably. Historical dictionary entries predate the proliferation of statutory fee-shifting and should not be treated as complete statements of what is now taxable as costs.
Jurisdictional variation runs in both directions. On the taxation side, what is exempt (and therefore not taxable) varies significantly by state and locality. On the costs side, what qualifies as a taxable cost differs between federal and state courts, and among states.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's align closely on the core definition, which is unsurprising given that the term is descriptive rather than technically contested. All three sources present both meanings — taxation and litigation costs — without treating them as competing definitions, which reflects the practical reality that legal readers in earlier periods were expected to disambiguate by context.
Bouvier's addition — that taxable costs are "allowable by officers appointed to adjust costs" — captures the procedural mechanics more precisely than Black's does: taxation of costs was and remains a clerical or administrative function, not a judicial determination on the merits, though it is subject to judicial review.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the significant expansion of the concept of taxable income and taxable estate under modern statutory frameworks, nor the growth of fee-shifting statutes that have complicated the litigation-costs meaning. For those developments, the historical dictionaries are starting points only.
Jurisdictional Note
In federal court, taxable costs are governed by 28 U.S.C. § 1920, which enumerates specific allowable categories; items outside that list are generally not taxable absent a specific statutory basis. State courts apply their own cost statutes, which vary considerably. On the taxation side, whether particular property or income is taxable under state law depends on each state's exemption framework, making state-specific research essential for questions beyond the federal income tax context.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Taxation (for the revenue sense, scope of taxing power, and exemption frameworks)
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Court Costs and Fee Shifting (for the litigation-costs sense and procedural mechanics of cost taxation)