Taxation
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To tax (from the latin taxare: to estimate, which in turn is from tangere: to touch) is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon an individual or legal entity by a state or the functional equivalent of a state.
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- There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist — the taxidermist leaves the hide.
- Mortimer Caplan, American bureaucrat, Director of the IRS. Time magazine, 1st February 1963
- The law before us, my lords, seems to be the effect of that practice of which it is intended likewise to be the cause, and to be dictated by the liquor of which it so effectually promotes the use; for surely it never before was conceived by any man entrusted with the administration of public affairs, to raise taxes by the destruction of the people.
- Philip Dormer Stanhope, from a speech in the House of Lords (Feb. 22, 1743), on the Gin Licensing Act, recorded in The Parliamentary History of England to the Year 1803, vol. XII.
- To please universally was the object of his life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
- Edmund Burke, speech on American taxation, House of Commons (April 19, 1774); The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, ed. Paul Langford, vol. 2, p. 454 (1981)
- Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
- Benjamin Franklin, Letter to M. Leroy (Nov. 13, 1789). Complete Works, vol. 10, ed. John Bigelow (1887-1888)
- An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy.
- Daniel Webster, McCulloch v. Maryland 17 U.S. 327 (1819)
- Men who prefer any load of infamy, however great, to any pressure of taxation, however light.
- Sydney Smith, On American Debts
- Countries, therefore, when lawmaking falls exclusively to the lot of the poor cannot hope for much economy in public expenditure; expenses will always be considerable, either because taxes cannot touch those who vote for them or because they are assessed in a way to prevent that.
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 1, pt. 2, ch. 5 (1840)
- In other words, 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, Democracy in America, vol. 1, pt. 2, ch. 5 (1840)
- If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Compensation,” Essays, First Series (1841, repr. 1847).
- Civil servants and priests, soldiers and ballet-dancers, schoolmasters and police constables, Greek museums and Gothic steeples, civil list and services list—the common seed within which all these fabulous beings slumber in embryo is taxation.
- Karl Marx, Moralizing Criticism and Critical Morality (1847)
- Taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world.
- George Bernard Shaw, Caesar, in Caesar and Cleopatra, act 2 (1901)
- Of all debts men are least willing to pay the taxes. What a satire is this on government! Everywhere they think they get their money’s worth, except for these.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Politics,” Essays: Second Series, in The Complete Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 1, p. 302 (1929)
- Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!
- Margaret Mitchell, Scarlett O’Hara, in Gone With the Wind, vol. 2, pt. 4, ch. 38 (1936)
- Indoors or out, no one relaxes
In March, that month of wind and taxes,
The wind will presently disappear,
The taxes last us all the year.- Ogden Nash, “Thar She Blows,” Versus (1949)
- Note, besides, that it is no more immoral to directly rob citizens than to slip indirect taxes into the price of goods that they cannot do without.
- Albert Camus, Caligula, act 1, sc. 8, Pléiade (1962)
- 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, The Age of Uncertainty, Chapter 6, p.180
- And I'm the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into. My opponent, my opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say, to them, Read my lips: No new taxes!
- George Bush, Acceptance speech, New York Times (August 19, 1988)
- The Inland Revenue is not slow, and quite rightly, to take every advantage which is open to it under the Taxing Statutes for the purposes of depleting the taxpayer’s pocket. And the taxpayer is in like manner entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Inland Revenue.
- James Avon Clyde, Lord Clyde (1863-1944), Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services and Ritchie v. Inland Revenue (1929) 14 Tax Case 754.
- Printing money is merely taxation in another form. Rather than robbing citizens of their money, government robs their money of its purchasing power.
- Peter Schiff, "Peering into the Abyss"[1], 29 March 2009
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- The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.
- Jean Baptiste Colbert, minister of finance to Louis XIV of France
- It has also been attributed to Cardinal Mazarin, under whom Colbert served.
- The only thing that hurts more than paying an income tax is not having to pay an income tax.
- Lord Thomas R. Dewar (1864-1930), Scottish peer, whiskey distiller and aphorist.
- Beware of the taxman — he’ll pinch your wallet!
- Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents?
- Peg Bracken, American author
- The reward of energy, enterprise and thrift—is taxes.
- Capital Punishment: The Income tax.
