Excise or Excise tax (sometimes called an excise duty), is a type of tax charged on goods produced within the country (as opposed to customs duties, charged on goods from outside the country).
Typical examples of excise duties are taxes on tobacco, alcohol and gasoline.

Definition

Excise duty is a tax levied on the producer of certain goods, commodities and activities. It is a separate tax from VAT, and is different from it in that VAT solely affects the consumer (although, naturally, the consumer also indirectly pays the excise, as it is included in the eventual sale price of the product). The excise duty can account for as much as half the price of the goods subject to it, and sometimes more.

The Oxford Dictionary gives the origin of the word to be the Dutch accijns, itself presumed to originate from the Latin accensare – "to tax".
Excise tax is notable insofar as how vague its definition actually is - it would be difficult, if at all possible, to find a precise definition explaining what it is that categorizes goods subject to excise tax. Lists of such goods are readily provided by governments, and it is possible to comparitively deduce what motives might be used for grouping such goods together; however, no explicit, formal definition is provided by any one government.[citation needed] Examples include –
HM Revenue & Customs, which lists the following items, activities and general areas as being subject to excise duty: "alcohol, environmental taxes, gambling, holdings & movements, hydrocarbon oil, money laundering, refunds of duty, revenue trader's records, tobacco duty, and visiting forces",but provides no further explanation as to what links these to one another.

The Australian government, which says that— “excise duty is a tax levied on certain types of goods produced or manufactured in Australia”.
The New Oxford English Dictionary says the same thing: "a tax levied on certain goods and commodities produced or sold within a country and on licenses granted for certain activities" (revised second edition, 2005), but, again, no further explanation is provided as to what the word "certain" stands for.