Sunday, May 18, 2014

Tax Quotes

These come from an interesting source:

When it comes to taxes, everyone has an opinion. These quotes reflect the opinions of their authors; their inclusion here is not an official IRS endorsement of the sentiments expressed.

"Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.'' — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice

"The power of taxing people and their property is essential to the very existence of government.'' — James Madison, U.S. President

"To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men." —  Edmund Burke, 18th Century Irish political philosopher and British statesman

“I am 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, entertainer

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

"No government can exist without taxation. This money must necessarily be levied on the people; and the grand art consists of levying so as not to oppress.'' — Frederick the Great, 18th Century Prussian king

"Like mothers, taxes are often misunderstood, but seldom forgotten.'' — Lord Bramwell, 19th Century English jurist

"The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.'' — Arthur C. Clarke, author

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

A tax loophole is "something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform.''
— Russell B. Long, U.S. Senator

"Few of us ever test our powers of deduction, except when filling out an income tax form.''
— Laurence J. Peter, author

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” — Albert Einstein, physicist

“Taxation with representation ain’t so hot either.” — Gerald Barzan, humorist

“Where there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.” — Plato

“Income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf.” — Will Rogers, humorist



I miss my girlfriend who was a tax auditor...

5 comments:

  1. Taxes are necessary to run government, it's the politicians who turn it into an evil.

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  2. "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. -- WlNSTON CHURCHILL (1903)

    "The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." -- Will Rogers

    "Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased - not a reduced - flow of revenues to the federal government." -- President John F. Kennedy, January 17, 1963, Annual Budget Message to the Congress, fiscal year 1964

    "The power to tax involves the power to destroy." -- Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall

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    Replies
    1. I wonder how your salary is paid?

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    2. "I wonder how your salary is paid?"

      Anon, I'm currently a drilling reservist, and cost quite a bit less than an active duty soldier. And now that the President has won the war on terror, they are looking at cutting about eighty thousand soldiers from the Army alone over the next three years. That's about a 15% reduction in personnel. You likely wont be seeing that done anywhere else in the government.
      Something like this also happened during the 80's in the post Viet Nam years. In a few years, for me at least, it will become a moot point as I'll be hitting the mandatory retirement age.
      A lot of reductions are being justified by reducing force requirements, for example the new requirement is to be able to respond to one major conflict instead of the previous requirement of two conflicts.
      It would be interesting to see them rethink other government services in a similar manner.

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  3. War, especially unnecessary war and wars started by lies are not a predictable, regular expense as are other expenditures like infrastructure maintenance and promises that must be kept by government with ever rising costs. It would be nice to cut highway costs buy 15% but then bridges fall down and there would be no new building to keep up with growth. It would be nice to cut food stamps by 15% but the children starve. By the way, we have cut those programs and have seen the dangerous results. During the same period we have not cut defense spending. Yet the Iraq war was just a lie and totally unnecessary. The choice of priorities suck and include profiteering at the expense of American lives. The last figures on the food stamp program stated a 1.5% waste, or fraud percentage of the program total; I wish the defense spending and other government programs could claim the same, our debt could be cut by 70%. No government program has as high a waste figure as the defense program.

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