quotations about taxes
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
If your biggest tax deduction was bail money, you might be a redneck.
JEFF FOXWORTHY
stand-up routine
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
To please universally was the object of his life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
EDMUND BURKE
speech on American taxation, House of Commons, April 19, 1774
Taxes are like hot potatoes that get passed around. The poor man who does not pay for water at home may pay for it when he buys coffee downtown, where tax-paying businesses pass the cost on to consumers.
K. FILIP PALDA
Home on the Urban Range
Taxation according to income is the most effective instrument yet devised to obtain just contribution from those best able to bear it and to avoid placing onerous burdens upon the mass of our people.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Message to Congress on Tax Revision, June 19, 1935
We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.
LEONA HELMSLEY
attributed, New York Times, July 12, 1989
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 16th Amendment gives the Federal government a direct claim on the lives of American citizens by enabling Congress to levy a direct income tax on individuals. Until the passage of the 16th amendment, the Supreme Court had consistently held that Congress had no power to impose an income tax.
RON PAUL
speech, April 30, 2009
Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt.
WILLIAM COBBETT
letter, February 10, 1804
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 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
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
Indoors or out, no one relaxes
In March, that month of wind and taxes,
The wind will presently disappear,
The taxes last us all the year.
OGDEN NASH
"Thar She Blows", Versus
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Young Statesman
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
Taxes are the lifeblood of government and no taxpayer should be permitted to escape the payment of his just share of the burden of contributing thereto.
ARTHUR T. VANDERBILT
"Appeal of N.Y. State Realty & Terminal Company", 1956
Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.
TERRY PRATCHETT
Night Watch
Taxes are like and unlike the rain, they fall upon the just and the unjust; most hardly upon the just because they will not resort to devious ways to escape the imposition.
PAUL CARUS
The Open Court
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"