Quotes & Sayings About Fair Tax

As income taxes and capital-gains taxes were reduced in the United States beginning in the 1980s, the share of federal taxes paid by "the rich" steadily went up. From 1980 to 2010, as the top 1 percent increased their share of before-tax income from 9 percent to 15 percent, their share of the individual income tax soared from 17 percent to 39 percent of the total paid. Their share of total federal taxes more than doubled during a period when the highest marginal tax rate was cut in half, from 70 percent to 35.5 percent. The wealthy, in short, are already paying more than their fair share of taxes, and the growth in their wealth and incomes has had nothing to do with tax avoidance or deflecting the tax burden to the middle class. — James Piereson

We need to lower tax rates for everybody, starting with the top corporate tax rate. We need to simplify the tax code. The ultimate answer, in my opinion, is the fair tax, which is a fair tax for everybody, because as long as we still have this messed-up tax code, the politicians are going to use it to reward winners and losers. — Herman Cain

All is fair in love, war and tax evasion. — Tom Sharpe

I think people have a legitimate right to minimise their tax obligations if they can, but they should pay their fair whack. I do think it's important to be transparent. — Boris Johnson

Spending and tax cut decisions must be both fiscally responsible and fair to our working families. I believe that fiscal responsibility is the way to create prosperity for America and secure the retirement of America's seniors. — Blanche Lincoln

To be sure, the Fair Tax is a big idea. However, I believe America was built on big ideas, and I was elected to Congress to fight for those big ideas, not nibble around the edges of a broken and destructive system. The FairTax would be a real stimulus for economic growth, and it wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime. — Rob Woodall

I hear from the business community all the time that what they need is an educated work force. They need an infrastructure that can make people and products. You need to cultivate an environment that they can imagine living in and being in, having employees be in. And a fair tax structure. And a responsive government. — Allyson Schwartz

We need real tax reform which makes the rich and profitable corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes. We need a tax system which is fair and progressive. Children should not go hungry in this country while profitable corporations and the wealthy avoid their tax responsibilities by stashing their money in the Cayman Islands. — Bernie Sanders

On issue after issue, the polls - and these are not snapshot polls; these are polls over a consistent period of time - show that most Americans share what one could call core liberal or progressive values: investment in health care and education over tax cuts; fair trade over free trade; corporate accountability over deregulation; environmental protection over laissez-faire policies; defending Social Security and Medicare over privatizing them; raising the minimum wage over eliminating it. The country prefers progressive alternatives to the failed policies of the conservative right. — Katrina Vanden Heuvel

All's fair in love, war and ride-sharing. — Marc Andreessen

When your child is a little older, you can teach him about our tax system in a way that is easy to grasp. Offer him, say, $10 to mow the lawn. When he has mowed it and asks to be paid, withhold $5 and explain that this is income tax. Give $1 to his younger brother, and tell him that this is "fair". Also, explain that you need the other $4 yourself to cover the administrative costs of dividing the money. When he cries, tell him he is being "selfish" and "greedy". Later in life he will thank you. — Joseph Sobran

I think we need to have competitive tax rates in order to create jobs in this country. And I think it should be fair. — Kristi Noem

We must reign in overspending by ridding government of outmoded programs, making Big Oil pay their fair share, repealing massive tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas, and enacting a tax code that no longer favors millionaires and billionaires. — Paul Tonko

The Fair Tax Equation: T=I(I(.000001)) — Michael A. Wood Jr.

I support both a Fair Tax and a Flat Tax plan that would dramatically streamline the tax system. A Fair Tax would replace all federal taxes on personal and corporate income with a single national tax on retail sales, while a Flat Tax would apply the same tax rate to all income with few if any deductions or exemptions. — Ralph Hall

There are three legs of the stool; spending, entitlements and making the tax code fair and equitable. That's the three legs of the stool. If we do all of those in a responsible, bipartisan way, I think the American people would all be very, very happy. — Claire McCaskill

The Tax Court is independent, and its neutrality is not clouded by prosecuting duties. Its procedures assure fair hearings. Its deliberations are evidenced by careful opinions. All guides to judgment available to judges are habitually consulted and respected. It has established a tradition of freedom from bias and pressures. It deals with a subject that is highly specialized and so complex as to be the despair of judges. It is relatively better staffed for its task than is the judiciary. — Robert H. Jackson

I'm still one who says that we can get rid of the Internal Revenue Service if we would pass the fair tax, which is a tax on consumption rather than a tax on people's income, and move power back where the founders believed it should have been all along. — Mike Huckabee

We will lower the tax burden on middle class Americans by asking the very wealthy to pay their fair share. Middle class taxpayers will have a choice between a children's tax credit or a significant reduction in their income tax rate. — William J. Clinton

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 should try to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to find a great life. It's a quest that will require political will and ingenious policies. President Obama's proposed expansion of the earned-income tax credit goes in this direction, but we need more. — Sendhil Mullainathan

I'll tell you what the fair tax does, it empowers the consumer and it lets people have their whole paycheck and it takes the power out of the hands of Congress and puts it in the hands of the consumer. That's power to the people. — Mike Huckabee

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

We simply cannot continue to live with a [tax] system which has so many inequities. It must be changed in such a way that each of us pays a fair share of the burden. It has been said that one man's loophole is another man's livelihood. Even if this is true, it certainly is not fair, because the loophole-livelihood of those who are reaping undeserved benefits can be the economic noose of those who are paying more than they should. — Millicent Fenwick

So we want to change the tax system. We want it to be fair, and we want to see some tax relief because people do three things when they get a little extra money in their pocket: They save it or they spend it or they invest it. — Todd Tiahrt

In Colma, a suburb of San Francisco, California there's a proposal pending to tax ... the dead. If proponents get their way, grave sites will be taxed $5 dollars - per grave, per year - for eternity. In Colma the dead outnumber the living by a ratio of roughly 1000-to-1, including such notables as: Wyatt Earp, Levi Strauss, and William Randolph Hearst. And they, apparently, haven't paid their fair share. For liberals, when it comes to taxes ... nothing is sacred. — Rush Limbaugh

We spend millions of dollars every year just for the right to pay our taxes, but once again, do we really need to do that? Why don't we simplify it? And I've certainly looked at fair tax, I've looked at flat tax, and if I get to the U.S. Senate, I'd like to review that. — John Raese

As president, I would promote a Fair and Flat Tax plan, known as the 'EZ Tax.' My tax plan would be the largest tax cut in American history, reforming individual, business, and worker taxes. — Rand Paul

Fair tax does not mean we don't want to encourage wealth creation. Wealth creation is how we raise the money to pay for world class schools and hospitals, for proper care of the weak, and dignity for the elderly. — Johann Lamont

Balance the federal budget now, not 15 years from now, not 20 years from now, but now. And throw out the entire federal tax system, replace it with a fair tax, a consumption tax, that by all measurements is just that. It's fair. — Gary Johnson

I was shocked to see that some of the very wealthiest people in the country have organised their tax affairs, and to be fair it's within the tax laws, so that they were regularly paying virtually no income tax. And I don't think that's right. — George Osborne

The stage I chose
a subject fair and free
'Tis yours
'tis mine
'tis public property.
All common exhibitions open lie,
For praise or censure, to the common eye.
Hence are a thousand hackney writers fed;
Hence monthly critics earn their daily bread.
This is a general tax which all must pay,
From those who scribble, down to those who play. — Charles Churchill

Some feel that it is fair for those with incomes under a certain dollar amount not to pay any federal tax. They say that these people are too poor and it would be a great burden to require them to contribute to the common pot. While I appreciate their compassion, serious problems arise when a person who pays nothing has the right to vote and determine what other people are paying. — Ben Carson

We all want a simpler code, but tax reform is about much more. It is about ensuring that everyone pays their fair share. The tax code is also used to promote behavior that we as a nation support, such as home ownership or charitable contributions. — Charles B. Rangel

I think that taxes would be fair if we first get rid of the tax code. This is the ultimate solution, not to just say we're going to trim around the edges, not to say that we will try to simplify a little of this and a little of that. The problem is, replace the tax code, so we can establish tax fairness for everybody. — Herman Cain

Contrary to the rhetoric emanating from the American left, the 'rich' are currently paying a lot more than 'their fair share.' It is only a handful of mega-rich, those whose entire incomes are derived from dividends and capital gains, rather than salaries or business profits, who have the ability to pay lower tax rates than some members of the middle class. The left knows this but continues to build their 'freeloading millionaire' straw man because it makes good politics. — Peter Schiff

What is not fair now is that corporations pay less and less tax, which means that you and I pay more because we're rooted somewhere, they've got our address, right? — Susan George

First, the oil and gas business pays its fair share of taxes. Despite the current debate on energy taxes, few businesses pay more in taxes than oil and gas companies. The worldwide effective tax rate for our industry in 2010 was 40 percent. That's higher than the U.S. statutory rate of 35 percent and the rate for manufacturers of 26.5 percent. — John S. Watson

And it would be fair. Everyone will pay the same tax and it will eliminate tax cheaters and corporate shenanigans. — Steve Forbes

It is not fair that people who are born in the UK to parents who are domiciled here, can later in life claim to be non-doms and live here, it is not fair that non-doms with residential property here in the UK can put it in an offshore company and avoid inheritance tax. — George Osborne

Now, the president would like to do tax reform, which would obviously lower rates for most people in America and make the tax code fair and get rid of loopholes and special treatment. But absent tax reform, the president believes the right way to get our fiscal house in order is ask the wealthy to pay their fair share. — David Plouffe

There can be no such thing as 'fairness in taxation.' Taxation is nothing but organized theft, and the concept of a 'fair tax' is therefore every bit as absurd as that of 'fair theft.' — Murray Rothbard

I'm happy to pay my fair share - which is whatever the tax is right now. — Jerry Della Femina

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

I don't think this is a situation where you can say that Congress was avoiding any mention of the tax power. It'd be one thing if Congress explicitly disavowed an exercise of the tax power. But given that it hasn't done so, it seems to me that it's - not only is it fair to read this as an exercise of the tax power, but this court has got an obligation to construe it as an exercise of the tax power if it can be upheld on that basis. — Donald Verrilli Jr.

A fraudulent vote is a stolen vote. It steals a vote from the thin air and nullifies the legal and legitimate vote of a tax-paying citizen, whose rights to a fair election shouldn't be tampered with. Winning an election is important, but winning it honestly is imperative in a Constitutional Republic. — Mike Huckabee

Multi-millionaires who pay half or less than half of the percentage of tax the rest of us pay justify their actions by saying they pay what the law requires. Though true, the fact is they found ways within the law to beat the purpose of the law - which, in the case of taxes, is that we all pay our fair share. — Simon Sinek

A consumption tax, a national sales tax makes some sense. But I think that if we move towards a Fair Tax, if we move towards a national sales tax, we have to make sure that we do away with the income tax. — Ken Buck

I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies. — William F. Buckley Jr.

I want to reform the tax code so that it's simple, fair, and asks the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000 - the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president; the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest surplus in history, and a lot of millionaires to boot. — Barack Obama

Bush already gave obscene tax breaks to people like me and Warren Buffet, and we are saying it's not fair. — Adam McKay

We must have a fair tax in the United States. We have to re-adjust it, we must be fiscally responsible. — Peter Camejo

What we need to do is replace the entire tax code. I do not think it makes sense to say, 'Let's just grab money from, quote, the wealthy' ... The issue is the tax code's rotten and we should start truly over with a simple code that is fair and transparent. — Barry Diller

I think you need to have a tax system that basically is flat, fair and simple. And - that you can put on a post card. I mean, even Timothy Geithner could do this one and get it on time. — Rick Perry

If you believe women are constituted differently to men then remove taxation from them. But if you're a democrat and you believe in government of the people by the people and for the people, then you believe in fair play. So when you tax women, give them the vote as well. — James Munro

One of the high spots of the decade for me was offering the bill which culminated in the tax act of 1986, which brought rates down. That was the most difficult problem to solve: how to make the tax system of the United States more fair. We tried to make it simpler, but we failed on that one. — Donald T. Regan