quotations about taxes
Every culture has some ritual for joining two people together and making them stay that way, and ours is giving tax breaks.
BAUVARD
Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic
There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist--the taxidermist leaves the hide.
MORTIMER CAPLAN
attributed, Taxes: The Tax Magazine, 1970
Taxes are like the wheat poured into the public hopper; rent, in whatever form, may be described as the flour that comes from the public mill. The privileged man, who is allowed to carry off the grist, eats his bread, as it were, at the taxpayer's expense.
CHARLES BOWDOIN FILLEBROWN
The ABC of Taxation
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
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
Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.
TERRY PRATCHETT
Night Watch
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
The current tax code is a daily mugging.
RONALD REAGAN
Labor Day address in Independence, Missouri, October 2, 1985
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
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
Taxes are nothing but a game of pick pocket.
JOSEPH BONKOWSKI
Quote Me
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
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
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"
Taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Caesar and Cleopatra
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
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