quotations about taxes
Tax reduction has an almost irresistible appeal to the politician, and it is no doubt also gratifying to the citizen. It means more dollars in his pocket, dollars that he can spend if inflation doesn't consume them first. But dollars in his pocket won't buy him clean streets or an adequate police force or good schools or clean air and water. Handing money back to the private sector in tax cuts and starving the public sector is a formula for producing richer and richer consumers in filthier and filthier communities. If we stick to that formula we shall end up in affluent misery.
JOHN WILLIAM GARDNER
The Recovery of Confidence
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
Above all things, a tax attorney must be an indefatigable skeptic; he must discount everything he hears and reads. The market place abounds with unsound avoidance schemes which will not stand the test of objective analysis and litigation. The escaped tax, a favorite topic of conversation at the best clubs and the must sumptuous pleasure resorts, expands with repetition into fantastic legends. But clients want opinions with happy endings, and he smiles best who smiles last. It is wiser to state misgivings at the beginning than to have to acknowledge them ungracefully at the end. The tax adviser has, therefore, to spend a large part of his time advising against schemes of this character. I sometimes think that the most important word in his vocabulary is "No".
RANDOLPH PAUL
The Lawyer as Tax Adviser
If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep.
WILL ROGERS
Will Rogers Speaks
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
The current tax code is a daily mugging.
RONALD REAGAN
Labor Day address in Independence, Missouri, October 2, 1985
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
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
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 Largest business in the world is collecting U.S. tax dollars.
JOSEPH BONKOWSKI
Quote Me
I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers: Go ahead, make my day.
RONALD REAGAN
speech, March 13, 1985
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
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
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
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
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