Quotes on Taxes

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents… — James Madison

There is no such thing as a good tax. — Winston Churchill

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

Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed. — Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

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

People who relieve others of their money with guns are called robbers. It does not alter the immorality of the act when the income transfer is carried out by government. — Cal Thomas

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. — Albert Einstein

The share-the-wealth movement appeals most to those with the least to share

The taxpayer; that’s someone who works for the federal government, but doesn’t have to take a civil service examination. — Ronald Reagan

Congress can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay — Milton Friedman

The power to tax involves the power to destroy. — Chief Justice John Marshall, McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819

What does it mean when Republicans and Democrats alike warn us about the ‘pain’ involved in cutting government spending – in their spending less of our money? For the average citizen, what pain is there in his keeping more of his money to invest it the way he wants? Taxes cost people. Tax cuts do not cost government. — Theodore J. Forstmann, Forbes, October 14, 1996

It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for. — Will Rogers

Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing — and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even — Will Rogers

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

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

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

The most laughable White House criticism is that tax cuts are a ‘free lunch.’ The American people’s work created that money. Only in Washington could there be a belief that letting people keep more of what they create is a giveaway. — Forbes, August 26, 1996

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. — Robert A. Heinlein

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

If you would not confront your neighbor and demand his money at the point of a gun to solve every new problem that may appear in your life, you should not allow the government to do it for you — William E. Simon

You can talk about “social justice” all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get reelected That is not social justice or any other kind of justice. — Thomas Sowell

For an illustration of the difference between proportionate and progressive taxation, we can look to the Bible. There, tithing is explained as the economic basis of our Judaic-Christian religions. The Lord says you shall contribute one-tenth and He says, ‘If I prosper you 10 times as much you will give 10 times as much.’ That is proportionate — but look what happens today when you start computing Caesar’s share. A man of average income who suddenly prospered ten times as much would find his personal income tax increased 43 times. — Ronald Reagan

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

It would be a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their income — Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1758

The purpose of a tax cut is to leave more money where it belongs — in the hands of the working men and working women who earned it in the first place — Robert Dole, Barron’s

This [preparing my tax return] is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher. — Albert Einstein

There is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich and poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands — Justice Learned Hand

What does ‘fair’ mean? In the dictionary, it means that everyone has to do about the same. Ten percent of a million dollars is still ten times more than ten percent of a hundred thousand dollars, and twenty times more than ten percent of fifty thousand. But ‘fairness’ in the tax code has come to mean that we take all the money we can from successful people and dole it back … and what do we end up with? We end up with a jobs program for bureaucrats, and accountants, and lawyers, and somewhere along the way the taxpaying citizens are just plain forgotten. I’ll tell you what I think ‘fair’ means. I think it means we all bear the same burden in the same proportion. I think it means that the system not only allows, but encourages us to participate in the economy. — Tom Clancy, Executive Orders

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income — Plato, The Republic

The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away. — John S. Coleman

A taxpayer need not arrange its affairs so as to maximize taxes as long as the transaction has a legitimate business purpose. — Judge Cornelia G. Kennedy, The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, April 20, 1992, aff. of the Tax Court holding in Proctor & Gamble v. Commissioner

The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets. — Will Rogers

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward. — John Maynard Keynes

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. — Ronald Reagan, Address to National Association of Realtors, March 28, 1982

I am proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is — I could be just as proud for half of the money. — Arthur Godfrey

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.. — T. Coleman Andrews

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. — Frederic Bastiat

Most [tax revisions] didn’t improve the system, they made it more like Washington itself: complicated, unfair, cluttered with gobbledygook and loopholes designed for those with the power and influence to hire high-priced legal and tax advisers — Ronald Reagan

I like to pay taxes. It is purchasing civilization. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. — G. Gordon Liddy

The power of tax is not the power to destroy while this court sits… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. — Mark Twain

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

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

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. — Winston Churchill

Politicians never accuse you of ‘greed’ for wanting other people’s money — only for wanting to keep your own money. — Joseph Sobran

To lay with one hand the power of government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it on favored individuals …. is none the less robbery because it is …. called taxation. — US Supreme Court in Loan Association v. Topeka (1874)

The principle involved here is time-honored and true: and that is — it’s your money. — Robert Dole

The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys. — Thomas Jefferson

The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. — Will Rogers, Illiterate Digest (1924), “Helping the Girls with their Income Taxes”