Quotations about Taxes

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


When there's a single thief, it's robbery. When there are a thousand thieves, it's taxation. ~Vanya Cohen


Taxation with representation ain't so hot either. ~Gerald Barzan


Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt


The taxpayer - that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination. ~Ronald Reagan


America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation. ~Laurence J. Peter


I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money. ~Arthur Godfrey


The United States has a system of taxation by confession. ~Hugo Black


Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents? ~Peg Bracken


The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr. ~Will Rogers


Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. ~H.L. Mencken


The nation should have a tax system that looks like someone designed it on purpose. ~William Simon


We must care for each other more, and tax each other less. ~Bill Archer


The expenses of government, having for their object the interest of all, should be borne by everyone, and the more a man enjoys the advantages of society, the more he ought to hold himself honored in contributing to those expenses. ~Anne Robert Jacques Turgot


Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss. ~Robert Heinlein


The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing. ~Jean Baptist Colbert, attributed


What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue. ~Thomas Paine


Did you ever notice that when you put the words "The" and "IRS" together, it spells "THEIRS?" ~Author Unknown


We have long had death and taxes as the two standards of inevitability. But there are those who believe that death is the preferable of the two. "At least," as one man said, "there's one advantage about death; it doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." ~Erwin N. Griswold


Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today. ~Herman Wouk


Capital punishment: The income tax. ~Jeff Hayes


If the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, how he must hate the taxpayer! ~John Andrew Holmes


Of course the truth is that the congresspersons are too busy raising campaign money to read the laws they pass. The laws are written by staff tax nerds who can put pretty much any wording they want in there. I bet that if you actually read the entire vastness of the U.S. Tax Code, you'd find at least one sex scene ("'Yes, yes, YES!' moaned Vanessa as Lance, his taut body moist with moisture, again and again depreciated her adjusted gross rate of annualized fiscal debenture"). ~Dave Barry


People who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women. ~Author Unknown


Taxes: Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get an automatic extension. ~Author Unknown


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


It's income tax time again, Americans: time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil, and stab yourself in the aorta. ~Dave Barry


Man is not like other animals in the ways that are really significant: animals have instincts, we have taxes. ~Erving Goffman


The purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility. Let it be drawn upon largely, and they will then listen to truths which could not excite them through any other organ. ~Thomas Jefferson


To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury. ~Benjamin Tucker, Instead of a Book



Today, it takes more brains and effort to make out the income-tax form than it does to make the income. ~Alfred E. Neuman


A person doesn't know how much he has to be thankful for until he has to pay taxes on it. ~Author Unknown


Taxes are paid in the sweat of every man who labors. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt


I am thankful for the taxes I pay because it means that I'm employed. ~Nancie J. Carmody


The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away. ~John S. Coleman, address, Detroit Chamber of Commerce, 1956


Philosophy teaches a man that he can't take it with him; taxes teach him he can't leave it behind either. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966


It was as true... as taxes is. And nothing's truer than them. ~Charles Dickens


Death and taxes may be inevitable, but they shouldn't be related. ~J.C. Watts, Jr.


The best things in life are free, but sooner or later the government will find a way to tax them. ~Author Unknown


The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. ~Ronald Reagan


I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.


I shall never use profanity except in discussing house rent and taxes. ~Mark Twain


Our tax code is so long it makes War and Peace seem breezy. ~Steven LaTourette


The wages of sin are death, but after they take the taxes out, it's more like a tired feeling, really. ~Paula Poundstone


We are told that this is an odious and unpopular tax. I never knew a tax that was not odious and unpopular with the people who paid it. ~John Sherman


You must pay taxes. But there's no law that says you gotta leave a tip. ~Morgan Stanley advertisement


This is a question too difficult for a mathematician. It should be asked of a philosopher. ~Albert Einstein, about filling out his income tax form, 1944


Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. ~Will Rogers


U.S. Internal Revenue Service: an agency modeled after the revenue raising concepts of the 19th century economist, Jesse James. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute. ~Thomas Paine


Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund. ~F.J. Raymond


There's nothing wrong with the younger generation that becoming taxpayers won't cure. ~Dan Bennett


Pothinus: "Is it possible that Caesar, the conqueror of the world, has time to occupy himself with such a trifle as our taxes?"
Caesar: "My friend, taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world."
~George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"


There may be liberty and justice for all, but there are tax breaks only for some. ~Martin A. Sullivan


The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government. ~Barry Goldwater


Taxes grow without rain. ~Jewish Proverb


I don't know if I can live on my income or not - the government won't let me try it. ~Bob Thaves, "Frank & Ernest"


Of all debts, men are least willing to pay their taxes; what a satire this is on government. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Friends and neighbors complain that taxes are indeed very heavy, and if those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might the more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly. ~Benjamin Franklin


Any tax is a discouragement and therefore a regulation so far as it goes. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.


Question: " I understand that Congress is considering a so-called 'flat' tax system. How would this work?" Answer: "If Congress were to pass a 'flat' tax, you'd simply pay a fixed percentage of your income, and you wouldn't have to fill out any complicated forms, and there would be no loopholes for politically connected groups, and normal people would actually understand the tax laws, and giant talking broccoli stalks would come around and mow your lawn for free, because Congress is NOT going to pass a flat tax, you pathetic fool." ~Dave Barry


The flat tax would be so simple, you could fill it out on a post card. A post card that would say, in effect, having a wonderful time; glad most of my money is here. ~Steve Forbes


A fine is a tax for doing something wrong. A tax is a fine for doing something right. Author Unknown


Count the day won when, turning on its axis,
This earth imposes no additional taxes.
~Franklin P. Adams


Taxation, for example, is eternally lively; it concerns nine-tenths of us more directly than either smallpox or golf, and has just as much drama in it; moreover, it has been mellowed and made gay by as many gaudy, preposterous theories. ~H.L. Mencken


Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. ~Calvin Coolidge


It's about ten times the size of the Bible - and unlike the Bible, contains no good news. ~Don Nickles, about the Internal Revenue Code


The payment of taxes gives a right to protection. ~James M. Wayne


If we don't do something to simplify the tax system, we're going to end up with a national police force of internal revenue agents. ~Leon Panetta


What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin. ~Mark Twain, Notebook, 1902


The sales tax seems to be more politically acceptable than the income tax. ~Raymond C. Scheppach


There is an ancient belief that the gods love the obscure and hate the obvious. Without benefit of divinity, modern men of similar persuasion draft provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 341 is their triumph. ~Martin D. Ginsburg


All the Congress, all the accountants and tax lawyers, all the judges, and a convention of wizards all cannot tell for sure what the income tax law says. ~Walter B. Wriston


The politicians say "we" can't afford a tax cut. Maybe we can't afford the politicians. ~Steve Forbes


The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to take,
If the tax-collector hasn't got it before I wake.
~Ogden Nash


Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a refund from the IRS, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with. ~Author unknown, from a Washington Post word contest


You don't pay taxes - they take taxes. ~Chris Rock, Bigger and Blacker


People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can't live within its income. ~Robert Half


Tax complexity itself is a kind of tax. ~Max Baucus


He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation... For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.... We, therefore... solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States. ~The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies, 1776