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Opinion of the Court
tive history is read more literally, its apparent upshot is that, among those exactions that are taxes, the ones that are expressly treated as excises are "excise tax[es]" within the meaning of § 507(a)(7)(E). But that proposition fails, of course, to answer the question whether the exaction is a tax to begin with.
In sum, we conclude that the 1978 Act reveals no congressional intent to reject generally the interpretive principle that characterizations in the Internal Revenue Code are not dispositive in the bankruptcy context, and no specific provision that would relieve us from making a functional examination of § 4971(a). We proceed to that examination.
C
Anderson and New York applied the same test in determining whether an exaction was a tax under § 64(a), or a penalty or debt: "a tax is a pecuniary burden laid upon individuals or property for the purpose of supporting the Government." Anderson, 203 U. S., at 492; New York, 315 U. S., at 515; accord, Feiring, 313 U. S., at 285 ("§ 64 extends to those pecuniary burdens laid upon individuals or their property . . . for the purpose of defraying the expenses of government or of undertakings authorized by it"). Or, as the Court noted in a somewhat different context, "[a] tax is an enforced contribution to provide for the support of government; a penalty, as the word is here used, is an exaction imposed by statute as punishment for an unlawful act." United States v. La Franca, 282 U. S. 568, 572 (1931).
We take La Franca's statement of the distinction to be sufficient for the decision of this case; if the concept of penalty means anything, it means punishment for an unlawful act or omission, and a punishment for an unlawful omission is what this exaction is. Title 29 U. S. C. § 1082 requires a pension plan sponsor to fund potential plan liability according to a complex statutory formula, see also 26 U. S. C. § 412, and 26 U. S. C. § 4971(a) requires employers who maintain a
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