Taxation

“Welfare should be built of more taxpayers. Not by higher 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.”

“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.”

“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least amount of hissing.”

“And I'm the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into. My opponent, my opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say, to them, Read my lips: No new taxes!”

“Governments create nothing and have nothing to give but what they have first taken away — you may put money in the pockets of one set of Englishmen, but it will be money taken from the pockets of another set of Englishmen, and the greater part will be spilled on the way. Every vote given for Protection is a vote to give Governments the right of robbing Peter to pay Paul and charging the public a handsome commission on the job.”

“Note, besides, that it is no more immoral to directly rob citizens than to slip indirect taxes into the price of goods that they cannot do without.”

“World War II was . . . responsible for considerable changes in the U.S. federal income tax. Not only were rates increased, but the base was extended to cover most of the working population. Even as late as 1939, only 6 percent of U.S. citizens had to file an income tax return; by 1945 this had increased to over 70 percent . . . By 1945 the major features of the current federal tax system were in place.”

“There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist — the taxidermist leaves the hide.”

“The Inland Revenue is not slow, and quite rightly, to take every advantage which is open to it under the Taxing Statutes for the purposes of depleting the taxpayer’s pocket. And the taxpayer is in like manner entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Inland Revenue.”

“If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing.”

“When a government taxes you, it takes something you own without your consent. That’s exactly what a thief does. The main difference is that the thief is breaking the law, whereas the government is (usually) taking your money legally.”

“Of all debts men are least willing to pay the taxes. What a satire is this on government! Everywhere they think they get their money’s worth, except for these.”

“I’m tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to “keep people in their homes.” Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I’m willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the leftwing Congresscritters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the that created the bubble help them—with their own money.”

“The thugs and bullies of the Internal Revenue Service, as properly befits their disposition, consider the tax rebels, the tax resister, the worst of all criminals . . . The marauders of the Internal Revenue Service, with strict quotas for how much they have to squeeze from taxpayers, descend on ordinary working people like locusts and plague them even unto death.””

“I don't like the income tax. Every time we talk about these taxes we get around to the idea of 'from each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs'. That's socialism. It's written into the Communist Manifesto. Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening to him.”

“Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, had interrupted him in a description of his work on electricity to put the impatient inquiry: 'But, after all, what use is it?' Like a flash of lightning came the response: 'Why, sir, there is every probability that you will soon be able to tax it!'”

“Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

“The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partisans and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever. . .”

“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.”

“No country ever takes notice of the revenue laws of another.”

“Taxes are the existence of the state expressed in economic terms. Civil servants and priests, soldiers and ballet-dancers, schoolmasters and police constables, Greek museums and Gothic steeples, civil list and services list—the common seed within which all these fabulous beings slumber in embryo is taxation.”

“Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!”

“Indoors or out, no one relaxesThe taxes last us all the year.”

“The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.”

“We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.”

“Printing money is merely taxation in another form. Rather than robbing citizens of their money, government robs their money of its purchasing power.”

“Taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world.”

“A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

“Men who prefer any load of infamy, however great, to any pressure of taxation, however light.”

“The law before us, my lords, seems to be the effect of that practice of which it is intended likewise to be the cause, and to be dictated by the liquor of which it so effectually promotes the use; for surely it never before was conceived by any man entrusted with the administration of public affairs, to raise taxes by the destruction of the people.”

“Countries, therefore, when lawmaking falls exclusively to the lot of the poor cannot hope for much economy in public expenditure; expenses will always be considerable, either because taxes cannot touch those who vote for them or because they are assessed in a way to prevent that.”

“In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.”

“What is the difference between a taxidermist & a tax-collector? The taxidermist only takes your skin.”

“Theft consists of taking a man’s property against his will, regardless of the beneficiary. If the individual has an inalienable right to his own life, liberty and property, then morally his life and property are his to do with as he pleases.”

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy.”

“In the usual progress of things, the necessities of a nation in every stage of its existence will be found at least equal to its resources.”

“Every good citizen … should be willing to devote a brief time during some one day in the year, when necessary, to the making up of a listing of his income for taxes … to contribute to his Government, not the scriptural tithe, but a small percentage of his net profits.”

“If the Government cannot reduce the "terrific" tax burden on the country, I will predict that you will have a depression that will curl your hair, because we are just taking too much money out of this economy that we need to make the jobs that you have to have as time goes on.”