quotations about taxes
I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers: Go ahead, make my day.
RONALD REAGAN
speech, March 13, 1985
Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them!
MARGARET MITCHELL
Gone With the Wind
The American colonies, all know, were greatly opposed to taxation without representation. They were also, a less celebrated quality, equally opposed to taxation with representation.
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
The Age of Uncertainty
Taxes are collected by governments in order to finance their expenditures and also for purposes of stabilization, distribution and allocation. Particular taxes may cause changes in people's behaviour and have an impact on aggregate demand that, therefore, influences the level of economic activity. Taxes are the instruments through which governments redistribute income and wealth and, moreover, they are an integral part of a government's fiscal policy as they are used to stabilize aggregate demand.
NIKOLAOS KARAGIANNIS
Modern State Intervention
When a law becomes so impossible to understand that the ordinary citizen must look to the "super expert," the law becomes a trap and not a viable guideline. For years, the income tax and gift and estate tax laws have been modified and amended to the degree that only tax lawyers and accountants could really make any sense out of them. Now, with the advent of the Tax Reform Act of 1976 and all of its cross implications, not even the tax lawyers and accountants are so sure of themselves.
ROBERT S. TAFT
New York Law Journal, December 30, 1976
There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist--the taxidermist leaves the hide.
MORTIMER CAPLAN
attributed, Taxes: The Tax Magazine, 1970
It puzzles me that the well-off complain so much about taxes when they pay so little relative to their wealth.
MOLLY IVINS
Baltimore Sun, September 5, 2002
Many people believe that where taxes are concerned, they are victims, held hostage by an inevitable process that allows them no input, no control. This passive approach becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy; where people believe that they lack control, they seldom try to assert control.
RICHARD CARLSON
The Don't Sweat Guide to Taxes
I don't think meals have any business being deductible. I'm for separation of calories and corporations.
RALPH NADER
Wall Street Journal, July 15, 1985
Taxes are nothing but a game of pick pocket.
JOSEPH BONKOWSKI
Quote Me
Every good citizen ... should be willing to devote a brief time during some one day in the year, when necessary, to the making up of a listing of his income for taxes ... to contribute to his Government, not the scriptural tithe, but a small percentage of his net profits.
CORDELL HULL
remarks in the House, Congressional Record, April 26, 1913
The current tax code is a daily mugging.
RONALD REAGAN
Labor Day address in Independence, Missouri, October 2, 1985
I'm proud to be paying taxes to the United States. The only thing is--I could be just as proud for half the money.
ARTHUR GODFREY
attributed, The Executive's Book of Quotations
The Founding Fathers realized that "the power to tax is the power to destroy," which is why they did not give the Federal government the power to impose an income tax. Needless to say, the Founders would be horrified to know that Americans today give more than a third of their income to the Federal government.
RON PAUL
speech, April 30, 2009
For patriots like me, paying taxes gives a feeling of responsibility, of being part of the fabric of our country, of contributing to the common good.
JOYCE MARCEL
"Life and Taxes", Common Dreams, March 23, 2006
Some taxpayers close their eyes, some stop their ears, some shut their mouths, but all pay through the nose.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Caesar and Cleopatra
Republicans spend their time trying to rig the tax system so that the kinds of income rich people get--capital gains, inheritances, and the like--get taxed at a lower rate than the kind of income you get when you work for a living.
PAUL WALDMAN
"Paying a Fair Share"
The best taxes are such as are levied upon consumptions, especially those of luxury; because such taxes are least felt by the people. They seem, in some measure, voluntary; since a man may choose how far he will use the commodity: They naturally produce sobriety and frugality, if judiciously imposed: And being confounded with the natural price of the commodity, they are scarcely perceived by the consumers. Their only disadvantage is that they are expensive in the levying.
DAVID HUME
Essays
The tax collector must love poor people. He is creating so many of them.
BILL VAUGHAN
attributed, Thoughts for Meaningful Life