Tax Quotes

How many cities of forty thousand, which is the population of Burlington, have a foreign policy? Well, we did. During my tenure as mayor we made the point that excessive spending on the military and unnecessary wars meant fewer resources to address the needs of ordinary people. Somewhere in the Reagan Library, or wherever these things are kept, there is a letter from the mayor of Burlington opposing the U.S. funding of contras in Nicaragua. The letter stated, "Stop the war against the people of Nicaragua. Use our tax dollars to feed the hungry and house the homeless. Stop killing the innocent people of Nicaragua." As ~ Bernie Sanders

The estate tax punishes years of hard work and robs families of part of their heritage by imposing a huge penalty on inheritance after death - a tax on money that has already been taxed. ~ Mike Fitzpatrick

The most expensive care we can give, we're giving those Americans without insurance. It's kind of stupid that we're fighting the notion that we want to quit paying a hidden tax and be up front about covering people in a way that is cost-effective. ~ Barack Obama

Proscription, martial law, the billeting of the rude troops, the tax collector, the unjust judge, anything at all, is sweeter than responsibility. ~ Mary McCarthy

Over the past two years, the House has passed more than 50 measures focused on stimulating the economy and expanding opportunities for American workers. The tax relief provisions in this package have been an important part of our pro-growth agenda. ~ Roger Wicker

I know everybody's income and what everybody earns,
And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns ~ W.S. Gilbert

We already have an annual wealth tax on homes, the major asset of the middle class. It's called the property tax. Why not a small annual tax on the value of stocks and bonds, the major assets of the wealthy? ~ Robert Reich

Oh, and although I don't particularly like the IRS, I still do not like terrorists and have no desire whatsoever to attack our federal government. This is the United States. If you don't like our government, go out and vote"--From Author's note in "Tax Break ~ Jay Williams

In 2001, Republicans used reconciliation to pass President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut that mainly benefited the wealthy. ~ Bernie Sanders

When you consider that a steelworker who's making $40,000 a year has virtually the same tax burden as someone who's making $400,000 a year, you see that there are inequities. This administration has used the tax code to accelerate wealth to the top. Most of the tax breaks have gone to people in the top bracket. ~ Dennis Kucinich

Reducing the tax burden is necessary to produce economic growth. ~ Bob Schaffer

My point here is to insist that the rich should pay their way, and that they can easily afford to do so. All of the angst of canceling vital government programs to close the deficit is a charade put on by the rich for the rich. With a fair tax structure and a just contribution of the rich to the rest of society, we can afford a truly civilized America. Let ~ Jeffrey D. Sachs

Once a rebel, always a rebel. You can't help being one. You can't deny that. And it's best to be a rebel so as to show 'em it don't pay to try to do you down. Factories and labour exchanges and insurance offices keep us alive and kicking - so they say - but they're booby-traps and will suck you under like sinking-sands if you're not careful. Factories sweat you to death, labour exchanges talk you to death, insurance and income tax offices milk money from your wage packets and rob you to death. And if you're still left with a tiny bit of life in your guts after all this boggering about, the army calls you up and you get shot to death. And if you're clever enough to stay out of the army you get bombed to death. Ay, by God, it's a hard life if you don't weaken, if you don't stop that bastard government from grinding your face in the muck, though there ain't much you can do about it unless you start making dynamite to blow their four-eyed clocks to bits. ~ Alan Sillitoe

Teddy Roosevelt supported a progressive income tax. If I am sitting pretty and you've got a waitress who is making minimum wage plus tips, and I can afford it and she can't, what's the big deal for me to say, 'I'm going to pay a little bit more'? That is neighborliness. ~ Barack Obama

This is the national equivalent of having no savings, your credit card maxed out, you didn't renew your insurance, and now your house has burned down. The only way we can start to solve this is rolling back the tax cuts for the rich, which would save about $70 billion. ~ Diana DeGette

We can applaud the state lottery as a public subsidy of intelligence, for it yields public income that is calculated to lighten the tax burden of us prudent abstainers at the expense of the benighted masses of wishful thinkers. ~ Willard Van Orman Quine

Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with. ~ Milton Friedman

What changed their mind was Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation. ~ Paul Weyrich

I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is. ~ Joan D. Chittister

I always had a long-term view of going into politics, so I suppose I was always careful. I mean, I got offered all these rinky dink tax deals, but I always paid my taxes. I am naturally quite conservative. ~ John Key

Dortmunder followed Kelp as he carried the tray down along the bar past the regulars, where the third was now saying, The idea of the flat tax is, you just pay the same as one month's rent. ~ Donald E. Westlake

Anybody who is familiar with the historical data from the IRS knows that raising income tax rates will likely actually reduce federal revenues. ~ Mike Pence

From the perspective of the world's national security apparatuses you exist in several locations. You appear on property and income-tax registries, on passport and ID card databases. You show up on passenger manifests and telephone logs . . . You are fingertip swirls, facial ratios, dental records, voice patterns, spending trails, e-mail threads. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The purpose for a tax system is to collect needed revenue at the least cost to the people. ~ Edward C. Prescott

There is some talk of lowering (the income tax), and they will have to. People are not making enough to pay it. ~ Will Rogers

Most conservatives just want to turn back the clock to a time before the income tax - 100 years or so. I would like to turn the clock back thousands of years to a time when people lived in small communities and took care of each other. ~ Pete Seeger

Failure to properly control our borders costs citizens in many ways: schools become overcrowded, medical resources are stretched too thin, other government services are overtaxed, and taxes increase further. ~ Zach Wamp

Democrats in Washington predicted that tax cuts would not create jobs, would not increase wages, and would cause the federal deficit to explode. Well, the facts are in. The tax cuts have led to a strong economy. Real wages were on the rise, and deficit has been cut in half three years ahead of schedule. ~ George W. Bush

Why? So you can still qualify for assistance? Your family is gaming the system?"

"No." Diana had always hated when people said this about her family. The bosses who made her dad list a payroll company as his employer, they gamed the system. The assholes who convinced her parents to take out both a second mortgage and a HELOC in 2006 gamed the system. The employers who would never give Edith enough hours for benefits gamed the system. But ask a lot of people, and they'd tell you it's people like her grandma who game the system. They'd tell you that an old woman who's worked hard every day of her life and still struggles to get by is a malignant vacuum for their personal tax dollars, and a blight on their lives as free Americans. "We're just trying to live. ~ J. Ryan Stradal

The tax rate of 35 percent is impossible to provide an incentive to the large corporations, that have $1.7 trillion offshore, to put their money back in the United States. ~ Frederick W. Smith

Your tax dollars are being used to pay for grade school classes that teach our children that CANNIBALISM, WIFE-SWAPPING, and the MURDER of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior. ~ Jesse Helms

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before
and thus was the Empire forged.
... In these enlightened days, of course, no one believes a word of it. ~ Douglas Adams

Every issue that we deal with in this country has a moral component to it. And so, to divorce a moral component to the debt burden we're leaving the next generation, the tax structure to how we spend our money in Washington, and how we - you know, how we value human life - I mean, all of those things, to me interrelate. They're not - they're not separate issues. ~ Rick Santorum

I firmly believe the death tax is good for people from all walks of life all throughout our society. ~ George W. Bush

I spent ten years in the private sector, actually learning how business works. I'm the governor of Ohio, and I inherited a state that was on the brink of dying. And we turned it all around with jobs and balanced budgets and rising credit and tax cuts, and the state is unified, and people have hope again in Ohio. ~ John Kasich

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

Being in love is like being lit on fire and having your loved one morph into a marshmallow as she runs to embrace you. But not being in love feels so much worse, possibly like being a tax collector. Actually, nothing compares to the lowliness of a tax collector. ~ Jarod Kintz

Unfortunately, the term "identity politics" has been weaponized. It is most often used by speakers to describe politics as practiced by members of historically marginalized groups. If you're black and you're worried about police brutality, that's identity politics. If you're a woman and you're worried about the male-female pay gap, that's identity politics. But if you're a rural gun owner decrying universal background checks as tyranny, or a billionaire CEO complaining that high tax rates demonize success, or a Christian insisting on Nativity scenes in public squares - well, that just good, old fashioned politics. With a quick sleight of hand, identity becomes something that only marginalized groups have.

The term "identity politics," in this usage, obscures rather than illuminates; it's used to diminish and discredit the concerns of the weaker groups by making them look self-interested, special pleading in order to clear the agenda for the concerns of stronger groups, which are framed as more rational, proper topics for political debate. But in wielding identity as a blade, we have lost it as a lens, blinding ourselves in a bid for political advantage. WE are left searching in vaid for what we refuse to allow ourselves to see. ~ Ezra Klein

When Clinton said he was going to create 8 million new jobs, I didn't think they were all going to be tax collectors. ~ Jay Leno

the decrease in the top marginal income tax rate led to an explosion of very high incomes, which then increased the political influence of the beneficiaries of the change in the tax laws, who had an interest in keeping top tax rates low or even decreasing them further and who could use their windfall to finance political parties, pressure groups, and think tanks. ~ Thomas Piketty

It's time, friends. Time to give back. Time to step out and risk more than we want. Time to dream dreams bigger than we imagined. Time to mourn with those who mourn, to bring beauty where there are ashes, to announce a new season in the world. This isn't mere altruism or sympathy; it's more than a tax write-off or publicity stunt. It's a shot at living the lives we were meant to live, that the world needs us to live, that we're scared to live. ~ Jeff Goins

Yeah, it's real easy to look in the mirror and be proud when you're wearing pleated shorts. And you know what's really pathetic? I don't even have any dividends to get tax-decreased. When'll they cut taxes on not-having-health-insurancends? ~ David Rees

The joint committee invited economists of many economic stripes to model what would happen if America switched from the current code to a unified income tax or a consumption tax. Every economist who modeled reported that the consumption tax would increase long-term economic growth. ~ Neal Boortz

The tax code is very inefficient. Both the personal tax code and the corporate tax code. By closing loopholes and lowering rates, you could increase the efficiency of the tax code and create more incentives for people to invest. ~ Ben Bernanke

Today the House has a chance to give 25 million married couples the best Valentine's Day gift possible, elimination from the most unfair of taxes, the marriage tax penalty. ~ Jerry Weller

Have you seen a copy of Tax Tips for Billionaires? ~ David Letterman

And above all, above all, honest work must be rewarded by a fair and just tax system. The tax system today does not reward hard work: it penalizes it. Inherited or invested wealth frequently multiplies itself while paying no taxes at all. But wages on the assembly line or in farming the land, these hard-earned dollars are taxed to the very last penny. ~ George McGovern

The skills and productivity of American Workers, not to mention the taxes they pay, are the greatest economic resource our country has. To condemn large numbers of them to unemployment, to deprive the Treasury of their tax contributions and to force them to live on unemployment at public expense is the most expensive luxury any society ever chose to buy. ~ Lane Kirkland

The corporation is the dominant and dominating institution of our time. Governments identify growth and development with commercial corporations and shower them with subsidies, tax privileges, and appropriate labour legislation and market support to attract a commitment and investment. ~ Eric Kierans

If our children are healthy, they'll develop into their full potential and become wonderful tax-paying citizens sometime, ~ Steve Kagen

In the North, neither greenbacks, taxes, nor war bonds were enough to finance the war. So a national banking system was created to convert government bonds into fiat money, and the people lost over half of their monetary assets to the hidden tax of inflation. In the South, printing presses accomplished the same effect, and the monetary loss was total. ~ G. Edward Griffin

I have no interest in becoming a tax exile and living somewhere I don't want to - I just want to be at home with my family. ~ Rafael Nadal

When you tax capital gains income, you don't help the economy, you hurt the economy, which is why President Kennedy, President Reagan, President Clinton and President Bush all believed we should have a lower rate for capital gains. ~ Rob Portman

I don't think any Australian will ever forget, there will never be a Carbon Tax under a government I lead. ~ Nigel Scullion

Just what do we tax under our current system? Work, that's what. Hard work and productivity. The harder you work, the more you achieve. The more you achieve, the more you're taxed. To make matters worse, under our "progressive" income tax system, the harder you work, the more severe the punishment actually is! ~ Neal Boortz

The Catholic Church must be the biggest corporation in the United States. We have a branch office in every neighborhood. Our assets and real estate holdings must exceed those of Standard Oil, A.T.&T., and U.S. Steel combined. And our roster of dues-paying members must be second only to the tax rolls of the United States Government. ~ Avro Manhattan

Governments enjoying surpluses have a very strong temptation to splash money around, and while tax cuts are always appealing, cutting taxes at the top of a boom runs the real risk of creating a structural deficit when the boom subsides. ~ Malcolm Turnbull

As a citizen, you have an obligation to the countrys tax system, but you also have an obligation to yourself to know your rights under the law and possible tax deductions
and to claim every one of them. ~ Donald Alexander

American tax dollars spent on education are meant to support students, not support aggressive, deceptive, and misleading marketing campaigns by certain for-profit education companies. ~ Sherrod Brown

If you can take my tax money and assure me that it'll go to the right purpose, that it will help the poor, then fine. But I'm not sure a lot of it does. In fact, I know a lot of it doesn't. ~ Bill Bennett

Providing tax relief and reducing regulations leads to job creation and new economic opportunities for our small businesses, which are the backbone of our economy. ~ Cathy McMorris Rodgers

Would your reply possibly be this? Well, it all depends on what my tax rate will be on the gain you're saying we're going to make. If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of 1 percent. Only in Grover Norquist's imagination does such a response exist. ~ Warren Buffett

The air, soil and water cumulatively degrade; the climates and oceans destabilize; species become extinct at a spasm rate across continents; pollution cycles and volumes increase to endanger life-systems at all levels in cascade effects; a rising half of the world is destitute as inequality multiplies; the global food system produces more and more disabling and contaminated junk food without nutritional value; non-contagious diseases multiply to the world's biggest killer with only symptom cures; the vocational future of the next generation collapses across the world while their bank debts rise; the global financial system has ceased to function for productive investment in life-goods; collective-interest agencies of governments and unions are stripped while for-profit state subsidies multiply; police state laws and methods advance while belligerent wars for corporate resources increase; the media are corporate ad vehicles and the academy is increasingly reduced to corporate functions; public sectors and services are non-stop defunded and privatized as tax evasion and transnational corporate funding and service by governments rise at the same time at every level. ~ John McMurtry

We need to simplify our tax code. We need to make sure that it's not too cumbersome for people to be able to comply with. And that they don't end up spending more money trying to file their taxes than they do actually paying in. ~ Kristi Noem

I'm a registered independent. I don't really believe in political parties. Bottom line: Mitt Romney's tax policy helps me. But I can't stomach seeing somebody go hungry or somebody not being able to get an education because I want more. So, I'm supporting Barack Obama. ~ Brian J. White

I bet that if you actually read the entire vastness of the U.S. Tax Code, you'd find at least one sex scene ... ~ Dave Barry

My only concern about art collaborations is that I never thought of myself as an Artist. My tax forms say Musician/Songwriter. ~ Sufjan Stevens

This king [Sesostris] divided the land among all Egyptians so as to give each one a quadrangle of equal size and to draw from each his revenues, by imposing a tax to be levied yearly. But everyone from whose part the river tore anything away, had to go to him to notify what had happened; he then sent overseers who had to measure out how much the land had become smaller, in order that the owner might pay on what was left, in proportion to the entire tax imposed. In this way, it appears to me, geometry originated, which passed thence to Hellas. ~ Herodotus

Many of us were kind of irritated with Obama for larding it with tax cut, which we didn't think was going to be stimulative. ~ Barack Obama

Nothing good can come from the Federal Reserve. It is the biggest taxer of them all. Diluting the value of the dollar by increasing its supply is a vicious, sinister tax on the poor and middle class. ~ Ron Paul

According to the federal government's own figures, the top 1 percent of U.S. wage earners were responsible for 68 percent of all federal tax receipts in 2011. Not just federal income tax, mind you, all federal taxes. ~ Mary Katharine Ham

Having your own church doesn't make you a good guy. It only makes you tax-exempt. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Finally, the House is working to require a comprehensive federal review of IRS regulations with a follow-up report to Congress on possible actions to reduce the tax paperwork burden imposed on small businesses. ~ Michael K. Simpson

F the government is going to put money into the automobile sector, it should break up GM and Chrysler as a condition of financial aid, and it should be even-handed in its treatment of start-up firms like Tesla, Miles, Fisker, and others. It would be terrible to kill the entrepreneurs who have taken great risks to bring new automotive technologies to market by pumping tax dollars into the behemoths that have done everything wrong for the last years. ~ Denis Hayes

It is urged that the use of the masculine pronouns he, his, and him in all the constitutions and laws, is proof that only men were meant to be included in their provisions. If you insist on this version of the letter of the law, we shall insist that you be consistent and accept the other horn of the dilemma, which would compel you to exempt women from taxation for the support of the government and from penalties for the violation of laws. There is no she or her or hers in the tax laws, and this is equally true of all the criminal laws. ~ Susan B. Anthony

Political identities aren't about tax cuts. They are about tribes... This is the result of the incredible rise in political polarization in recent decades. It used to be that both the Republican and Democratic parties included both liberals and conservatives. Since parties contained ideological multitudes, it was hard for them to be the basis of strong, personal identities. A liberal Democrat in New Jersey didn't have a lot in common with a conservative Democrat in Alabama. But now that's changed. The parties are sharply sorted by ideology. What were once fractious coalitions have become unified tribes. ~ Ezra Klein

If you tell people, 'that old banger of yours, we're going to tax the hell out of it,' they'll rightly tell you to get lost. But if you tell people that when they next buy a car, the tax will be adjusted so that the cleanest ones will cost less and the polluting ones will cost more, most people would say 'fair enough.' ~ Zac Goldsmith

We need to stop kicking the can down the road and rethink our entire tax system toward long-term, comprehensive tax reform. ~ Brad Schneider

By keeping most tax rates at present levels, Obama and the Democrats will claim that they have championed tax cuts for the middle class. ~ John Podhoretz

There is, of course, a lot of disagreement on Earth about whether demons actually exist, what they want, and how much of the tax code they are responsible for. ~ Robert Kroese

The only reason people lock their car doors when Obama walks by is they are afraid he'll tax them to death ... ~ James Woods

I've never supported a wage tax and I've never supported a payroll tax. ~ David Dewhurst

We must end the iniquitous multi-taxing of the same money. It is not right to tax people's incomes, then their savings on that income, to tax the movement of assets through capital gains tax, stamp duty and tax them again through inheritance tax if they have the audacity to die. ~ Liam Fox

The idea that somehow you're going to tax the 'rich' enough to pay for quality health care for every American who doesn't have it, can't afford it or stands to lose it, not to mention for all of the undocumented aliens who receive it for free now and presumably will continue to in Obama health land, is almost laughable. ~ Susan Estrich

Religious organisations have an automatic tax-free charitable status. ~ Richard Dawkins

Republicans favor tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, but these had no stimulative effect during the George W. Bush administration, and there is no reason to believe that more of them will have any today. As for the idea that cutting regulations will lead to significant job growth, it's just nonsense. It's just made up. ~ Bruce Bartlett

But a tax on luxuries would no other effect than to raise their price. It would fall wholly on the consumer, and could neither increase wages nor lower profits. ~ David Ricardo

In this session, bills on merchant shipping amendment, motor vehicles amendment and the constitutional amendment bill for goods and services tax were introduced in the Lok Sabha ~ Anonymous

Where's my tax form? Where's the file that's supposed to hold my W-2 form and interest statement? Where's the mileage log I specifically asked be kept last year?? Where's the monthly check summary? And who's been stuffing Visa receipts in the aluminum foil drawer??!! How embarrassing. I'm surrounded by idiots and I'm the only one in the office. ~ Cathy Guisewite

For while white conservatives use government assistance copiously--whether it be Social Security, or mortgage tax relief, low-interest federal college loans or Medicare--in their political discussions they tend to define their benefits as not being "welfare," in contrast to the somehow less noble assistance provided to their black and brown neighbors. ~ Sasha Abramsky

They're not a question of additional benefits. I mean, they touch every aspect of life. Your partner is sick. Social Security. I mean, it's pervasive. It's not as though, well, there's this little Federal sphere and it's only a tax question. It's as Justice Kennedy said, 1100 statutes, and it affects every area of life. And so he was really diminishing what the State has said is marriage. You're saying, no, State said two kinds of marriage; the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

A tax loophole is something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform. ~ Russell B. Long

The tax code is 10 times the size of the Bible with none of the good news. ~ Paul Ryan

This is a landmark opportunity for all that live and work in the Yukon. The Territory is now one step closer to realizing the potential that geothermal heat and power has for the economy, the environment, First Peoples, tax-payers and businesses. ~ Alison Thompson

It's the old Washington fiscal game of Jenga. You try to build as much debt as you can take, as much tax as you can take, until you topple the entire economy. ~ Kevin McCarthy

'Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars.' Guess what? Yes, we do in one regard: We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn't have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super-wealthy. That's not a tax raise. That's called fairness where I come from. ~ Joe Biden

I believe the tax on capital gains should be zero. ~ Mitt Romney

Absinthe, or wormwood, the liquorice-flavoured, plant-based liqueur, had been popular in France throughout the 19th century. Though the drink was of Swiss origin, heavy tax on import had encouraged H.L. Pernod to start producing it commercially in France at the end of the 18th century.12 It was a tremendous success, and as the 19th century unfolded, its popularity soared. Exceedingly potent, it was closer to a soft drug than a drink. 'The drunkenness it gives does not resemble any known drunkenness,' bemoaned Alfred Delvau. 'It makes you lose your footing right away […] You think you are headed towards infinity, like all great dreamers, and you are only headed towards incoherence.'13 In excess, absinthe could have a fatal effect on the nervous system, and by the time Maria started attending the bars and cafés where it was served, it had become a national curse. A favourite drink among the working classes precisely because of its relative cheapness for the effect produced, absinthe became the scapegoat for a host of social ills, not least the Commune.
(...)
Absinthe found a dedicated following among artists, writers and poets (including Charles Baudelaire), for whom the liquor became the entrancing 'green fairy'. Its popularity in these circles was due primarily to its intoxicating effect, but also because its consumption was accompanied by a curious ritual which appealed to quirky individuals with a taste for the extraordinary. To counteract the drink's inherent bit ~ Catherine Hewitt

So take something that's been happening in recent years: devolution―that is, removing authority from the federal government down to the state governments. Well, in some circumstances, that would be a democratizing move which I would be in favor of―it would be a move away from central authority down to local authority. But that's in abstract circumstances that don't exist. Right now it'll happen because moving decision-making power down to the state level in fact means handing it over to private power. See, huge corporations can influence and dominate the federal government, but even middle-sized corporations can influence state governments and play one state's workforce off against another's by threatening to move production elsewhere unless they get better tax breaks and so on. So under the conditions of existing systems of power, devolution is very antidemocratic; under other systems of much greater equality, devolution could be highly democratic―but these are questions which really can't be discussed in isolation from the society as it actually exists. ~ Noam Chomsky

[The poll tax] was a classic case of a good idea being entrusted to Chris Patten and becoming a terrible failure. ~ Norman Tebbit