quotations about taxes
A tax loophole is something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform.
RUSSELL B. LONG
attributed, Contemporary Tax Practice
Recognizing that all taxes have negative effects, a "good" tax is broad-based--it affects everybody. It has a low rate and does not have loopholes. When a tax is broad-based and has a low rate, everyone pays something but no one pays too much.
KATHLEEN VINEHOUT
"Is there a 'good' tax?", Jackson County Chronicle, May 31, 2017
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
If your biggest tax deduction was bail money, you might be a redneck.
JEFF FOXWORTHY
stand-up routine
Income taxes are responsible for the transformation of the Federal government from one of limited powers into a vast leviathan whose tentacles reach into almost every aspect of American life. Thanks to the income tax, today the Federal government routinely invades our privacy, and penalizes our every endeavor.
RON PAUL
speech, April 30, 2009
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
We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.
LEONA HELMSLEY
attributed, New York Times, July 12, 1989
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
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
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
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
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
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
There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist--the taxidermist leaves the hide.
MORTIMER CAPLAN
attributed, Taxes: The Tax Magazine, 1970
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 tax collector must love poor people. He is creating so many of them.
BILL VAUGHAN
attributed, Thoughts for Meaningful Life
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
Taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Caesar and Cleopatra
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
Taxes are nothing but a game of pick pocket.
JOSEPH BONKOWSKI
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