quotations about taxes
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
An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy.
DANIEL WEBSTER
McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819
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
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 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 what we pay for a civilized society.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
Compania General de Tabacas de Filipines v. Collector of the Internal Revenue, 1904
If you master your destiny, you will find out there is a destiny tax.
JOSEPH BONKOWSKI
Quote Me
People who avoid taxes, like corporations that move to Bermuda or look for big tax cuts, are not paying their dues to their country. You use our banking system, our Treasury, our roads, our schools to train your workers, our sewers, our governmental protections, our court systems. It is patriotic to be a taxpayer. It is traitorous to desert your country and not pay your dues, putting the burden on people with less means to support your business. Do your duty to the country. Pay your fair share of taxes.
PAMELA BOYD
"Taxes are like US membership fees", Missoulian, May 31, 2017
Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them!
MARGARET MITCHELL
Gone With the Wind
The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practiced in mixed governments, is inconsistent with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes are necessary, they are of course advantageous, but if they require an apology, the apology itself implies an impeachment. Why, then, is man imposed upon, or why does he impose upon himself?
THOMAS PAINE
Rights of Man
I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers: Go ahead, make my day.
RONALD REAGAN
speech, March 13, 1985
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
The current tax code is a daily mugging.
RONALD REAGAN
Labor Day address in Independence, Missouri, October 2, 1985
The Largest business in the world is collecting U.S. tax dollars.
JOSEPH BONKOWSKI
Quote Me
Taxes are like membership dues. We pay them to fund our priorities -- the services and programs we care about -- and they are also an investment in our country's future. They go back into our communities and pay for things we value, like Medicare and Social Security. But ... because our political system has allowed the tax system to be manipulated by moneyed special interests, we have a tax system that fails to accurately reflect my priorities.
NORA RANNEY
"Tax Day 2017: Taxes and All the Feels", National Priorities, April 18, 2017
Printing money is merely taxation in another form. Rather than robbing citizens of their money, government robs their money of its purchasing power.
PETER SCHIFF
"Peering into the Abyss", March 29, 2009
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
The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling.
PAULA POUNDSTONE
stand-up routine
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
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