In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, Nov. 13, 1789
Income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf.
WILL ROGERS, Sanity Is Where You Find It
Taxes are how we pool our money for public health and safety, infrastructure, research, and services--from the development of vaccines and the Internet to public schools and universities, transportation, courts, police, parks, and safe drinking water.
HOLLY SKLAR, Common Dreams, Apr. 17, 2006
Even Albert Einstein reportedly needed help on his 1040 form.
There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist--the taxidermist leaves the hide.
MORTIMER CAPLAN, attributed, Taxes: The Tax Magazine, 1970
Read my lips: no new taxes.
GEORGE H.W. BUSH, RNC acceptance speech, August 18, 1988
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, Feb. 10, 1804
We've got a tax code that is encouraging flight of jobs and outsourcing. And that's why we've specifically recommended ... that Congress change our tax code so that we stop giving tax breaks to companies that are moving to Mexico and China and other places, and start putting those tax breaks into companies that are investing here in the United States.
BARACK OBAMA, debate, Oct. 12, 2004
The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of squawking.
JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT, attributed, The Theory and Practice of Taxation
If your biggest tax deduction was bail money, you might be a redneck.
JEFF FOXWORTHY, stand-up routine
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
The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, attributed, The Harvest of a Quiet Eye
The layman is far more inclined than the expert to trust paperwork as a shield against tax liability. Tax lawyers are bombarded at cocktail parties with tax schemes, offered as proof positive of the speaker's astute sophistication, that would not convince the most inexperienced revenue agent or that teeter on the brink of fraud.
BORIS I. BITTKER, "Pervasive Judicial Doctrines in the Construction of the Internal Revenue Code"
The rope by which the great blocks of taxes are attached to any citizenry is simple loyalty--loyalty to King, to country, to government.
STEPHEN KING, The Eyes of the Dragon
At tax time, it helps to remember that if your tax obligation has increased from the previous year, it's usually because you're enjoying more income. That's a situation to which most of us aspire. Higher taxes are a price that we pay for greater success.
RICHARD CARLSON, The Don't Sweat Guide to Taxes
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
The legal right of a taxpayer to decrease the amount of what otherwise would be his taxes, or altogether to avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted.
GEORGE SUTHERLAND, Gregory v. Helvering, 1934
They can't collect legal taxes from illegal money.
AL CAPONE, attributed, Capone
When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of free government.
GROVER CLEVELAND, attributed, Treasury of Presidential Quotations
If you master your destiny, you will find out there is a destiny tax.
JOSEPH BONKOWSKI, Quote Me
Taxes are simply contributions demanded of citizens as their share of the expenses of government.
PAUL LEROY-BEAULIEU, "Traité de la Science des Finances"
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
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, Dec. 30, 1976
The best things in life are tax free.
JOSEPH BONKOWSKI, Quote Me
In levying taxes and in shearing sheep it is well to stop when you get down to the skin.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought
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
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, Mar. 23, 2006
We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.
LEONA HELMSLEY, attributed, New York Times, Jul. 12, 1989
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, Apr. 30, 2009
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
Every advantage has its tax.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON, "Compensation", Essays
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