That's not the same, though, because it is not mandatory to obtain a passport (at least not for everyone—you may need one if you want to travel abroad, but this is viewed by the government as a non-essential privilege and not a right). Broadly speaking, in the US, a "fee" is something you pay in order to receive some form of optional service, such as the issuing of a passport, and a "fine" is something you are ordered to pay as a penalty for breaking the law. Everything else—any payment required of a law-abiding citizen either for simply existing or as a condition for carrying out law-abiding actions (e.g. owning property, earning income)—is a tax.

Of course, sometimes fees and fines can be seen as "stealth taxes" when they intrude too far into everyday life, particularly when state monopolies are involved. For example, the cost of First Class postage with USPS is technically a fee for an optional service, but the USPS monopoly on First Class letter delivery makes it at least partly a tax, to the extent that another carrier might have provided the same service for a lower price in the absence of the monopoly.