Tax Quotations

Tax Quotations

For some pithy comments about taxes by Vernon Jacobs, see Tax Humor.

The legal right of a taxpayer to decrease the amount of what otherwise would be his taxes, or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted. (U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sutherland, Gregory vs. Helvering, 293 U.S. 465, 1965)
Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs so as to make taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor, and do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more taxes than the law demands. Taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. ( Justice Learned Hand, U.S. Supreme Court )

A taxpayer need not arrange its affairs so as to maximize taxes as long as the transaction has a legitimate business purpose. (Judge Cornelio G. Kennedy, sixth Circuit Court Appeals.)

The taxpayer (is) someone who works for the government but doesn't have to take a civil service examination. (Ronald Reagan)

Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavor consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for? (F. A. Hayek)

We cannot have both freedom and an income tax coexisting within one society. (Daniel J. Pilla)

It seems that every time Congress sets out to trim the budget, the knife slips and trims the taxpayers instead. (Unknown)

The origins of recorded history were inextricably linked to oppressive taxation. (Alvin Rabushka)

The United States is the only country where it takes more brains to figure your tax than to earn the money to pay it. (Edward J. Gurney)

The IRS runs from its past, evades its responsibilities, coddles criminals, lies to Congress, retaliates against whistle-blowers, and squanders the billions it receives in taxpayers' funds. (Shelley L. Davis)

It's the duty of a good shepherd to shear his ship, but not to skin them. (Tiberius Caesar)

I don't know of a single foreign product that enters this country untaxed, except the answer to prayer. (Mark Twain)

The first 9 pages of the Internal Revenue Code define income; the remaining 1,100 pages spin the web of exceptions and preferences. (Warren G. Magnuson)

The tax collector differs from Robin Hood because his robbery is legalized. (Charles Adams)

Watergate had exposed the IRS as an agency capable of initiating politically-inspired audits. (Shelley L. Davis)

When Barbary Pirates demand a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called "tribute money". When the Mafia demands a fee for allowing you to do business, it's call "the protection racket." When the state demands a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called "income tax." (Jeff Daiell)

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)

If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see it with representation. (Rush Limbaugh)

No government exaction is more destructive than a death duty that falls, almost exclusively, on productive capital. (Hans F. Sennholz)

The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. (Will Rogers)

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

All taxes discourage something. Why not discourage bad things like pollution rather than good things like working or investment? (Lawrence Summers)

The IRS has developed a marvelous method of deflecting any and all criticism against it. (Shelley L. Davis)

Tax pressures grew heavier and tendency to evasion -- illegal or legitimate -- on the part of high officials and large landowners, was increased ... and was the end of the (Roman) state. (Aurelio Bernardi)

The art of taxation consists of so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing. (J.B. Colbert)

I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is -- I could be just as proud for half the money. (Arthur Godfrey)

Tax reform is taking taxes off things that have been taxed in the past and putting taxes on things that haven't been taxed. (Art Buchwald)

(Preparing a tax return) is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher. (Albert Einstein)

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)

The first income tax law of the American century was only fourteen pages long, but it contained enough exceptions and exemptions, loopholes and inconsistencies to keep top notch accountants capably employed. (Shelley L. Davis)

It's getting so that children have to be educated to realize that "Damn" and "Taxes" are two separate words. (Unknown)

We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. (Winston Churchill)

William Tell refused to acknowledge the Austrian Hapsburgs and their gang of tax collectors. For this defiance he was ordered to shoot an apple from the head of his son with a crossbow. (Charles Adams)

The income tax structure we labor under ... is the most offensive to our Constitutional system of government. (Daniel J. Pilla)

The power to tax is the power to destroy. (John Marshall)

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)

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

If you get up early, work late, and pay your taxes, you will get ahead -- if you strike oil. (J. Paul Getty)

Doing your own taxes is like performing your own appendectomy. (Forbes Magazine)

There are two systems of taxation in our country: one for the informed, and one for he uninformed. (Judge Leonard Hand, U.S. Supreme Court)

The most delicious of all privileges -- spending other people's money. (John Randolph)

Nuclear physics is much easier than tax laws. It's rational and always works the same way. (Jerold Rochwald)

Count the day won when, turning on its axis, this earth imposes no new taxes. (Franklin P. Adams)

You don't pay taxes -- they take taxes. (Chris Rock)

The Dutch republic did not collapse; it declined, much like the British Empire, from the burdens of too much taxation. (Charles Adams)

You've just told the guy next to you your life's history, how much you make, and how you've gotten out of paying income tax for years, and find out he's from the IRS. ( Unknown)

The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison cell. ( Denis Healey)

There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A voter who takes pride in such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money--if a gun is held to his head. (P.J. O'Rourke)

On April 15, just try telling the Internal Revenue Service you just don't feel like "contributing" this year. (Robert H. Michael, Rep.-Ill.)

Secession by the South was a reaction against Lincoln's high-tax policy. (Charles Adams)

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. (William E. Borah)

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

If a taxpayer is not a voter, the process of "consent" is undermined. Voters therefore, must be taxpayers. (Charles Adams).

A millionaire's fortune does not consist of idle luxuries, but of factories, machines and equipment that produce for the people, give employment and yield wages. (Hans F. Sennholz)

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. (Ronal Reagan)

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

Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. (Thomas Paine)

When you tax gain or profit, you inhibit gain or profit. (Daniel J. Pilla)

Governments likely to confiscate wealth are unlikely to have much wealth to confiscate in the long run. (Thomas Sowell)

The income tax ... can be likened to a dirty industrial smelter that does an efficient job ... but that pollutes the air, poisons the streams, and kills the forests. (Charles Adams)

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

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

The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than Golf. (Will Rogers)

It is wise to remember that the taxing and licensing power is a dangerous and potent weapon which, in the hands of unscrupulous or bigoted men, could be used to suppress freedoms and destroy religion unless it is kept within appropriate bounds. (Frank Murphy)

The list of notables who have fled their homeland to avoid heavy taxation would read like an international Who's Who. Flight is the number one device used by wealthy people to avoid heavy taxation. (Charles Adams)

The original Tax Code had 11,400 words; today it has 7 million. (Sam Johnson)

Any tax is a discouragement and therefore a regulation as far as it goes. (Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr.)

All of 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)

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

There is no civilization that did not tax, and there are probably no taxes that haven't been evaded, (Charles Adams)

Tax pollution --- not people. (Gary E. Studds, D-MA)

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

Tax complexity itself is a kind of tax. (Max Baucus)

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

Widespread tax evasion is a sure sign a government's tax system is bad. (Charles Adams)

Forced redistribution (of wealth) inevitably reduces the stream of goods and thus intensifies the problem of poverty. (Hans F. Sennholz)

Every time this country ... has cut tax rates across the board, revenues went up and the economy grew. (Jack Kemp)

In no uncertain terms, the Supreme Court has said that because "we need the money", it is permissible to violate the constitutional rights of a citizen to get it. (Daniel J. Pilla)

Only little people pay tax. (Leona Helmsley)

Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others. (Oscan Wilde)

Are we ever going to have a federal tax system that regular people can understand? (Dave Barry)

Tax havens are inevitable whenever taxes are too high. (Charles Adams)

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income. (Plato)

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. (George Bernard Shaw)

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

In 1989, Japan replaced its low capital gains withholding tax with a high American style tax. As soon as this happened, the Japanese stock market collapsed. (Charles Adams)

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

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

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

The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing. (Jean Baptist Colbert)

Neither kings nor the best democratic institutions can be relied upon to to control their spending appetites when the power to spend and tax resides in the same political body. (Charles Adams)

People who in their personal lives would never harm others are quite willing to seize other people's income and wealth through the political process. (Hans F. Sennholz)

I can give you 1040 reasons why I hate the government. (Tax Soft Wind)

The promise of yesterday are the taxes of today. (Mackenzie King)

The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return. (Gore Vidal)

Whereas tax planning was once an exclusive game for the rich, it is now the pursuit of everybody except the foolish. (Charles Adams)

Nothing is more familiar in taxation than the imposition of a tax upon a class or upon individuals who enjoy no direct benefit from its expenditure, and who are not responsible for the condition to be remedied. (Harlan F. Stone)

The best government is the one that charges you the least blackmail for leaving you alone. (Thomas Rudman-Brown)

America is the land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation. (Laurence J. Peter)

It is just as immoral for the government to grant exemptions as it is for the citizens to hide their income. (Charles Adams)

Those who support the death tax generally do not do so for economic reasons but for political ones. (William Beach)

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

Patriotism is soluble in taxes -- it dissolves easily. (Charles Adams)

The avoidance of taxes is the only pursuit that still carries any reward. (J. M. Keynes)

The American people have had enough of a tax system that is secretive, adversarial, and unfair. (Richard Gephart, Dem- MO)

Taxes that are not apportioned among all taxpayers with impartiality and fairness lose all force of moral obligation. (Charles Adams)

I don't know if I can live on my income or not - the government won't let me try it. (Bob Thaves)

The federal government has imposed more than 50 kinds of taxes. (Michael J. Graetz)

A tax ... may obstruct the industry of the people, and discourage them from applying to certain branches of business which might give maintenance and employment to great multitudes. (Adam Smith)

The most crucial problem, seldom addressed by any tax reformers, concerns not the question of rates ... but the dangers created by the growing powers of spying and tough penal laws to enforce tax compliance. (Charles Adams)

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 Heinlein)

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

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess our of the public treasury. (Alexander Tyler)

Taxes and golf are alike. You drive your heart out for the green and then end up in the hole. (Unknown)

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

If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less, tax it. (Unknown)

One can't help wonder if the pro-IRS Supreme Court isn't biased because of the potential power the IRS has over its members. (Charles Adams)

If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to some else, including themselves. (Thomas Sowell)

Inflation and tax progression are pushing all estates towards the top rate of taxation. (Hans F. Sennholz)

Inflation is one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation. (Milton Freidman)

We appear to be following the course of many great nations of the past -- we are taxing ourselves to death. (Charles Adams)

It is fairer to tax people on what they extract from the economy, as roughly measured by their consumption, than to tax them on what they produce for the economy, as roughly measured by their income. (Thomas Hobbs)

The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night. (Otto van Bismark)

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it. (Alexis De Tocqueville)

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teen age boys. (P.J. O'Rourke)

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

The art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other. (Voltaire)

These days it is hard to believe that America was founded to avoid high taxation. (Unknown)

No man's property is safe while Congress is in session. (Mark Twain)

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

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

The moment you abandon ... the cardinal principles of exacting from all individuals the same proportion of their income or their property, you are at sea without a rudder or compass. (J. R. McCullich)

Whoever hopes a faultless tax to see, hopes that ne'er was, is not, and ne'er shall be. (Alexander Pope)

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

The income tax created more criminals than other single act of government. (Barry Goldwater)

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

Estate taxation is utterly unsuited to achieve the dream of equality. Born from envy and resentment, it fosters prodigality and dissipation and exasperates the poverty of the poor. (Hans F. Sennholz)

The power to tax the exercise of a privilege is the power to control or suppress its enjoyment. (William D. Douglas)

The modern high taxing, high spending state does not obtain its vast revenues from the rich but from heavy taxes on all citizens, including the poor. (Arthur Shenfield)

Almost all taxes on production fall finally on the consumer. (David Ricardo)

Man does not make right, even in taxation. (Robert H. Jackson)

And it came to pass in those days, there there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (New Testament)

If Patrick Henry thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how bad it is with representation. (Old Farmer's Almanac)

The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing. (Attributed to J. B. Colbert)

It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. (John F. Kennedy)

Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree. (Sen. Russell B. Long)

An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation. ( John Marshall)

The trick is to stop thinking of it as "your" money. I don't even think of it as the government's money. I take what I want, and you can't stop me. We never had this conversation. (Unidentified IRS Revenue Officer)

[The tax code] is a monstrosity and there's only one thing to do with it. Scrap it, kill it, drive a stake through its heart, bury it and hope it never rises again to terrorize the American people. (Steve Forbes)

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 re-elected. (Thomas Sowell)


Adams, Charles W., For Good or Evil: The Impact of Taxes on Civilization , Madison Books, 1993

Davis, Shelley L., Unbridled Power, Harper Collins Books, 1997

Fisher, Antony, Fisher's Concise History of Economic Bungling , Caroline House Books, 1978

Hayek, F. A., The Road to Serfdom, University of Chicago Press, 1994

Pilla, Daniel J., How to Fire the IRS, Winning Publications, 1993

Sennholz, Hans F., Death & Taxes, 2nd Edition, Center for Futures Education, 1982

Vern Jacobs

http://www.vernonjacobs.com/tax-quotations.htm

Hat tip to Kosmic for sharing this.