Fee (Definition)

1. A fixed sum charged, as by an institution or by law, for a privilege: a license fee; tuition fees.
2. A charge for professional services: a surgeon’s fee.

Government Fee (Wikipedia document clip)

In government, the difference between a fee and a tax is that a fee is paid for specific goods or services rendered by the government, while a tax has no connection to the benefits received for an individual.

Licenses and permits

Fees are usually charged for various government services, including license plates and annual motor vehicle registration, as well as driver licenses and professional licensing. Fees are also charged for various permits, like demolition and building permits, rezoning, and land grading (which causes silt); and sometimes for increasing stormwater runoff, destroying native vegetation, and cutting-down healthy trees.

Public resources (Included for completeness, but not relevant to most of this document)

A user fee is a fee paid for the use of a public resource, like a park. This is most common for national parks, and often also state parks or provincial parks, and for privately owned areas.

Deceptive use (Included for completeness, but not relevant to most of this document)

Sometimes fee is used to whitewash what are actually penalties or taxes. For example, Virginia’s now-repealed Civil Remedial Fees were actually a tax on drivers with certain kinds of traffic law violations.

License  (Definition)

1. permit: a printed document that gives official permission to a person or group to own something or do something
2. legal authorization: official permission to do something, either from a government or under a law or regulation
3. chance to do something: the opportunity to do something, especially when this goes beyond normal limits

Clear interpretation

A government Fee, to get a license, to run a business, is a means to pay for permission to do something that you would have been able to do if there was no government stopping you.

You know what we call that:

Extortion  (Definition)

1. obtaining something by illegal threats: the crime of obtaining something such as money or information from somebody by using force, threats, or other unacceptable methods
2. charging of unfairly high prices: the charging of an excessive amount of money for something
3. getting something by force: the acquisition of something through the use of force or threats

Why am I calling it Extortion?

You are paying a fixed fee, to get a permit, to do something that would otherwise be legal, but if you don’t, you will be challenged with threats, (Since we are challenging the government here, the term illegal vs legal is completely relative.) charged with unfairly high prices in the form of fines, and finally have force applied against you for standing up against the immoral government.

Dictionary entries from Bing Dictionary. Government Fees vs. Taxation commentary from Wikipedia.