Quotes & Sayings About Taxes Taxation

The tax upon land values is the most just and equal of all taxes. It falls only upon those who receive from society a peculiar and valuable benefit, and upon them in proportion to the benefit they receive.It is the taking by the community for the use of the community of that value which is the creation of the community. It is the application of the common property to common uses. When all rent is taken by taxation for the needs of the community, then will the equality ordained by nature be attained. — Henry George

The United States has a system of taxation by confession — Hugo Black

When governments run on petro dollars or petro revenue instead of taxes, then they kind of sever the link between taxation and representation, and if you're not being taxed, then you're not being represented. — Andrew Nikiforuk

It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend. — Ludwig Von Mises

Whatever the "Christian conservatives" in America say, there is no one set of rightful opinions that follow on automatically from your belief. If you have signed up for the redeeming love of God, you don't - you really don't - have to sign up too for low taxes, creationism, gun ownership, the death penalty, closing abortion clinics, climate change denial and grotesque economic inequality. You are entirely at liberty to believe that the kingdom would be better served by social justice, redistributive taxation, feminism, gay rights and excellent public transportation. You won't have the authoritative sanction of the gospel for believing in those things either, of course. But you can. — Francis Spufford

We've got this weird dysgenic situation where we're basically just paying idiots to breed and taxing intelligent people to stay away from each other with anything remotely resembling fertility. — Stefan Molyneux

I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. — Milton Friedman

The politicians say 'we' can't afford a tax cut. Maybe we can't afford the politicians. — Steve Forbes

No matter what anyone may say about making the rich and the corporations pay taxes, in the end they come out of the people who toil — Calvin Coolidge

Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reeactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free. — Thomas Jefferson

It is not only the general principles of justice that are infringed, or at least set aside, by the exclusion of women, merely as women, from any share in the representation; that exclusion is also repugnant to the particular principles of the British Constitution. It violates one of the oldest of our constitutional maxims ... that taxation and representation should be co-extensive. Do not women pay taxes? — John Stuart Mill

There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure. — Isabel Paterson

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species. — James Madison

The American colonies, all know, were greatly opposed to taxation without representation. They were also, a less celebrated quality, equally opposed to taxation with representation. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Taxation is neither good nor bad in itself. Everything depends on how taxes are collected and what they are used for. — Thomas Piketty

More investment sins are probably committed by otherwise quite intelligent people because of "tax considerations" than from any other cause. One of my friends-a noted West Coast philosopher-maintains that a majority of life's errors are caused by forgetting what one is really trying to do. This is certainly the case when an emotionally supercharged element like taxes enters the picture (I have another friend-a noted East Coast philosopher who says it isn't the lack of representation he minds-it's the taxation). — Warren Buffett

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

I came into politics partly because I want to be able to reduce taxes so that individuals have more of their money to spend, so that businesses have more of their money to create jobs, but I believe that lower taxes are sustainable when you get the public finances in order, so I will only make promises I can keep on taxation. — George Osborne

Among the many other questions raised by the nebulous concept of "greed" is why it is a term applied almost exclusively to those who want to earn more money or to keep what they have already earned - never to those wanting to take other people's money in taxes or to those wishing to live on the largesse dispensed from such taxation. No amount of taxation is ever described as "greed" on the part of government or the clientele of government. — Thomas Sowell

The true principle of taxation is the benefit principle - those who benefit from a government service should pay for it. It's also known as the 'user pay' principle. Every effort should be made to link the payment of taxes or fees to the cost associated with the government service. — Mark Skousen

What's the best way to make sure that the poor have a share in a country's growing wealth: Regulation? Taxes? Philanthropy? — Linsey McGoey

In a general sense, all contributions imposed by the government upon individuals for the service of the state, are called taxes, by whatever name they may be known, whether by the name of tribute, tythe, tallage, impost, duty, gabel, custom, subsidy, aid, supply, excise, or other name. — Joseph Story

Many people today think that the Tea Act - which led to the Boston Tea Party - was simply an increase in the taxes on tea paid by the American colonists. That's where the whole "Taxation Without Representation" meme came from.

Instead, the purpose of the Tea Act was to give the East India Company full and unlimited access to the American tea trade and to exempt the company from having to pay taxes to Britain on tea exported to the American colonies. It even gave the company a tax refund on millions of pounds of tea that it was unable to sell and holding in inventory.

In other words, the Tea Act was the largest corporate tax break in the history of the world. — Thom Hartmann

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. — Frederic Bastiat

If the Negro knows enough to pay taxes to support the government, he knows enough to vote; taxation and representation should go together. If he knows enough to shoulder a musket and fight for the flag, fight for the government, he knows enough to vote. — Frederick Douglass

You know what isn't class warfare? Progressive taxation, as in, say, expecting billionaires to pay at least as much in taxes as their secretaries. Ideally, in fact, they should pay more. — Timothy Noah

Your profits are going to be cut down to a reasonably low level by taxation. Your income will be subject to higher taxes. Indeed in these days, when every available dollar should go to the war effort, I do not think that any American citizen should have a net income in excess of $25,000 per year after payment of taxes. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world. — George Bernard Shaw

If all those magnificent cathedrals with their valuable lands in Boston, Philadelphia and New York were taxed as they should be, the taxes of women who hold property would be proportionately lightened ... I cannot see any good reason why wealthy churches and a certain amount of property of the clergy should be exempt from taxation, while every poor widow in the land, struggling to feed, clothe, and educate a family of children, must be taxed on the narrow lot and humble home. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them. — Alexander Hamilton

All told, over the period 1932-1980, nearly half a century, the top federal income tax rate in the United States averaged 81 percent. — Thomas Piketty

If you have free trade and free circulation of
capital and people but destroy the social state and all forms of progressive taxation, the temptations of defensive nationalism and identity politics will very likely grow stronger than ever in both Europe and the United States. Note, finally, that the less developed countries will be among the primary beneficiaries of a more just and transparent international tax system. — Thomas Piketty

Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich as what they are
a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told. — Ha-Joon Chang

The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense ... When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor. — Frederic Bastiat

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. — Mark Skousen

Those of us who understand human history know the role taxation has played in shaping the destiny of mankind. The matter of taxes - more specifically, the right to tax - is clearly no stranger to controversy and has frequently served as the catalyst for revolutionary change. — Owen Arthur

Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual. — Thomas Jefferson

New taxes are so unpopular that most 'social' handout schemes are originally enacted without enough increased taxation to pay for them. The result is chronic government deficits, paid for by the issuance of additional paper money. — Henry Hazlitt

The necessary connexion of representatives with taxes, seems to have sunk deep into many of those minds, that admit sounds, without their meaning. — Samuel Johnson

As to Taxes, they are evidently inseparable from Government. It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation, to protect it from foreign danger, or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine. — Alexander Hamilton

If the US government spends 40 percent of the nation's income, as it does through either borrowing or taxes, that income is not available for people to spend. The deficit is an indirect method of taxation. Of course, politicians prefer to borrow instead of tax because then someone down the road has to deal with the consequences. — Milton Friedman

The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied ... and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings. — Thomas Jefferson

It is a singular advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end purposed - that is, an extension of the revenue. — Alexander Hamilton

You could not possibly maintain the current level of government taxation without the taxes being hidden, and they are hidden in two very different ways. They are hidden through withholding, but they are also hidden by being imposed on business, supposedly on business, when really, of course, business can't pay taxes, only people can pay taxes. — Milton Friedman

So vast a sum, receiving all the protection and benefits of the government, without bearing its proportion of the burdens and expenses of the same, will not be looked upon acquiescently by those who have to pay the taxes ... I would suggest the taxation of all property equally. — Ulysses S. Grant

If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant. — George Washington

On the contrary, the inflation itself is partly a response to the reaction. As it has become politically less attractive to vote higher taxes to pay for higher spending, legislators have resorted to financing spending through inflation, a hidden tax that can be imposed without having been voted, taxation without representation. That is no more popular in the twentieth century than it was in the eighteenth. — Milton Friedman

There is no better way to return the matter of taxation to full public discusssion than to repeal the withholding taxes on wages and salaries. Only when the American people are confronted with the enormous excesses of government in a personal and direct way - by an annual bill for services rendered - will they be able to make an informed judgment about which services they want and which ones they can do without. — Karl Hess

Economists agree that all taxes potentially detract from the ability of markets to allocate resources efficiently, and the least inefficient types of taxation are those that are simple, uniform, and predictable, which allow businesses to plan and invest around them. The U.S. tax code is exactly the opposite. While nominal corporate tax rates in the United States are much higher than in other developed countries, very few American corporations actually pay taxes at that rate, because they have negotiated special exemptions and benefits for themselves. — Francis Fukuyama

Yes I pay taxes ... There are no ethics in the face of coercion, that is blaming the victim. Focus on the man with the gun, not the man in the crosshairs trying to survive. — Stefan Molyneux

A number of people who I've talked to about this assume that I got into a fight with the cops. (Because of, y'know, the militant politics.) I actually had an audience member come up to me once and ask me if I paid taxes. Of course I pay taxes! I pay taxes for exactly the same reason that I hate paying taxes - because I think my government is terrifying and stupid. I don't need the IRS kicking my door down and taking my meticulously alphabetized collection of Tijuana bibles. — Phillip Andrew Bennett Low

Even if you assume that the whole economy would work better had we never had double taxation, having the envy and resentment of the richest paying low or no taxes screams of injustice. You have to have a fair system. — Charlie Munger

It would be an instructive exercise for the skeptical reader to try to frame a definition of taxation which does not also include theft. Like the robber, the State demands money at the equivalent of gunpoint; if the taxpayer refuses to pay, his assets are seized by force, and if he should resist such depredation, he will be arrested or shot if he should continue to resist. — Murray N. Rothbard

I refuse to believe that the only reason we are here is to pay taxes and die. — Seth Adam Smith

We are looking for a Wealth Tax that will bring in sufficient revenue to justify having a wealth tax. — Dick Spring

Taxes are indeed very heavy -
We are taxed twice as much by our Idleness.
Three times as much by our Pride.
And four times as much by our Folly. — Benjamin Franklin

In the woe of the century no factor caused more trouble than the persistent lag between the growth of the state and the means of state financing. While centralized government was developing, taxation was still encased in the concept that taxes represented an emergency measure requiring consent. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State's inhabitants, or subjects. — Murray N. Rothbard

The liberals who demanded equality of taxation on behalf of the poor, for instance, did not imagine that they would obtain progressive taxation to the disadvantage of the well-off, and that they would end up with an arrangement in which taxes are voted by those who do not pay them. — Vilfredo Pareto

Our aim is to make tax collecting a declining industry. — Margaret Thatcher

No animal on the face of the earth could conceive of taxation. You and I work roughly six months a year to pay our local, state and federal taxes. If nothing else, this should convince you that animals are smarter than people. — Rita Mae Brown

Green recorded these initial thoughts about government: "Either the people will pay direct taxes, or they will pay none if they know it; and if they don't know when they pay taxes, it is quite time for the prudent, economical administration of government that they did. The Treasury should just supply the moderate wants of the administration of government; an overflowing treasury brings with it corruption and fraud. It has been the curse of nations, and, profiting by the experience of the past, it becomes the present to avoid the instruments of their overflow. — Michael Rubbinaccio

Selfishness is not a virtue. Altruism is not a moral weakness. Taxation is the price we pay for civilization. — Darryl Cunningham

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces. — Terry Pratchett

Taxes are necessary. But the system of discriminatory taxation universally accepted under the misleading name of progressive taxation of income and inheritance is not a mode of taxation. It is rather a mode of disguised expropriation of the successful capitalists and entrepreneurs. — Ludwig Von Mises

All we have to do now is to inform the public that the payment of social security taxes is voluntary and watch the mass exodus. — Walter E. Williams

I believe that the levels of taxation advocated by liberals render those taxes a veiled form of theft. 'Give me more than half of your honestly earned money or you will be arrested' is legalized thievery. — Dennis Prager

You may scold your carpenter, when he has made a bad table, though you can't make a table yourself.' I say to you - 'Mr. Finch, you may point out a defect in a baby's petticoats, though you haven't got a baby yourself!' Doesn't that satisfy you? All right! Take another illustration. Look at your room here. I can see in the twinkling of an eye, that it's badly lit. You have only got one window - you ought to have two. Is it necessary to be a practical builder to discover that? Absurd! Are you satisfied now? No! Take another illustration. What's this printed paper, here, on the chimney-piece? Assessed Taxes. Ha! Assessed Taxes will do. You're not in the House of Commons; you're not a Chancellor of the Exchequer - but haven't you an opinion of your own about taxation, in spite of that? Must you and I be in Parliament before we can presume to see that the feeble old British Constitution is at its last gasp? — Wilkie Collins

All taxation is an evil, but heavy taxes, indiscriminately levied on every everything are one of the greatest curses that can afflict a people — Henry Adams

the regional governments can't raise taxes. The source of revenue would simply leave for another region. In fact, the effect of decentralization without guaranteed funding and national or multinational standards is a competition between regions for the lowest possible tax rates.
(III - From Corporatism to Democracy) — John Ralston Saul

Taxation, the very thing that had triggered the British civil wars, would do so again, this time in America. The taxes may have been different, but the result would once again be disaster. What happened in America was really round two of those wars - the civil war of the British Empire, with the Hanoverians playing the part of the Stuarts, and the Americans the heirs of the revolutionaries, of Cromwell and of William III, the inheritors of a true British liberty, that had somehow got lost in its own motherland. — Simon Schama

Pah ... commoners, traders." Ergus made a disparaging gesture.
Traders with money, Ergus. Money they put at the disposition of young Tanahkos," Lmachdan said in a dry tone. "Money that turns into soldiers. Soldiers who are used to extort tribute from us. Tribute that is turned into more soldiers. The warlord has a good thing going, I'll say that for him. — Andrew Ashling

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

Yet the extravagant enthusiasm for profit persisted among businessmen. In the spring of 1969 Senator Long [spoke out against] a partisan of the oil industry...[and] that further taxation of oil profits would be disastrous. Such taxes... would remove "all business inventive and lead to Thursday to Tuesday weekends, wife swapping and drinking." Without the lure of profit, work would thus become meaningless. Americans would become pagan again and evils would prevail much like those that had inflamed Captain Endicott three centuries earlier — Jason Epstein

The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities or to find other lawful methods of avoiding the realization of taxable income. The result is that the sources of taxation are drying up; wealth is failing to carry its share of the tax burden; and capital is being diverted into channels which yield neither revenue to the Government nor profit to the people. — Andrew Mellon

Corporations do not pay taxes, they collect them, passing the burden to consumers as a cost of production. And corporate taxation is a feast of rent-seeking - a cornucopia of credits, exemptions and other subsidies conferred by the political class on favored, and grateful, corporations. — George Will

Finally, Obama's remarks are carefully constructed to undermine the arguments of conservatives, who frame the social programs funded by taxation as government handouts to the undeserving. Obama flips the taxes-as-handouts frame on its head, to yield a frame in which tax breaks are handouts to the rich, and the estate tax is a transfer of wealth from ordinary taxpayers to wealthy individuals - a frame that tells a vital truth. It — George Lakoff