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| Tax (Photo credit: 401K) |
* Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others. - Oscar Wilde
From Denny: Awww, come on, we all have to pay some taxes in order to have all the goodies that come from how useful government can be upon occasion: like highways to move your products to market, tasty produce trucked in from other parts of the world to your grocery store, cheap clothing made outside America because we can't afford to pay our own people a living wage, freedom of movement like flying on our airlines where they are nickel and dime-ing their customers to death, even charging to use the toilets en route.
* Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society. - Franklin D. Roosevelt
The good stuff that works for us from when government is run by people of good conscious are things like police protection, fire departments, hospitals, funding of public schools and colleges, college loans at decent interest rates, building and maintenance of highways and bridges, energy and water plants, keeping safe our food supply and checking up on the drug industry and regulating all kinds of industries.
What we don't want is our government to get too good at being useful: like during the Republican infamous Bush and Cheney years when they bribed that fast talking snake charmer Iraqi Chalabi $33 million a month for useless intelligence and ineffective diplomacy in the Iraq War. Then they paid out billions to government contracts to Halliburton who refused to be taxed so moved their headquarters out of America to Saudi Arabia to avoid being prosecuted for wrong-doing like war profiteering. Then there was the building up of a large secret off-the-books - and away from Congressional oversight - the mercenary army like Blackwater. They were as large as 100,000 soldiers for hire and funded by the federal government in addition to our military - but not subject to the same rules and law as the military - which meant they were not accountable for literally any wrong-doing or murders.
One thing is for sure, people have a love-hate relationship with the idea of government and the people who run it. The wealthy are usually a stingy group who resent getting taxed, yet enjoy the benefits from the government that helped to make them rich.
People are taxed, rate hiked, assessed unexpected charges from every angle: federal, state, county, city, grocery, auto, insurance and home ownership. Banks and credit cards invent new fees to charge and change the agreement you originally signed up for on the card. Taxes, fees, rate hikes just keep on coming. Sooner or later the majority will no longer be able to continue to absorb those increases.
Before you know the average taxpayer is barely left with enough money to buy groceries and gas to go to work. That would explain why there is an alarming number of middle class people going to food banks every week to feed their families. They used to be the donors to those food banks; now they need the help.
Taxes are a sore subject with the American people, especially since our American Revolution over King George's taxes - another King George, not Bush but the English king. :) This is how most people feel and it's how they vote. Most people vote their wallets - or what's left of it.
* I like to pay taxes. It is purchasing civilization. - Oliver Wendell Holmes
With that sentiment come the annual conversations about how to improve the taxation and take less. For years people have thrown out ideas into the public air as better, less expensive and less confusing, ways to collect taxes. Some suggest a flat rate tax of say 10% of your income. Of course, by the time you get through with your state and local taxes and church tithing, if you do so, you could end up paying out half of your income. No one can live on that and put anything into their savings accounts for retirement or college funds for the kids.
The Fair Tax Proposal explained on About.com. The Fair Tax idea is replacing income taxes with a national sales tax.
The only person in America against Fair Tax replacing our current way of collecting taxes sent an email to the writer in the above link. Here's an excerpt of their response as why the Fair Tax is a bad idea:
"Those, who promote this scheme are either rich or incorrigibly gullible.
The FairTax is only fair to the Rich. It's a Pyramid Scheme. Never trust the Rich to protect your interests. Remember, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"!
Read their entire argument and comments which is fun reading, go here.
Did you know that of each dollar spent by our federal government for this year, only 61 cents is funded by federal taxes? We borrow the rest. Take a look at this report:
Quotes
* It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for. ~ Will Rogers
* If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep. - Will Rogers
* When there's a single thief, it's robbery. When there are a thousand thieves, it's taxation. - Vanya Cohen
* The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. - Mark Twain
* Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even. - Will Rogers
* On filing for tax returns: This is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher. - Albert Einstein, math genius
* Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today. - Herman Wouk
* The way taxes are, you might as well marry for love. - Joe E. Lewis
* Congress can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay. - Milton Friedman, economist
* The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward. - John Maynard Keynes
* There is no such thing as a good tax. - Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister
* When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income. - Plato, Greek philosopher
* Isn't it appropriate that the month of the tax begins with April Fool's Day and ends with cries of 'May Day!'? - Rob Knauerhase
* I guess I think of lotteries as a tax on the mathematically challenged. - Roger Jones
* I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents... - James Madison
* Taxation with representation ain't so hot either. - Gerald Barzan
* The taxpayer - that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination. - Ronald Reagan
* America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation. - Laurence J. Peter
* I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money. - Arthur Godfrey
* The United States has a system of taxation by confession. - Hugo Black
* Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents? - Peg Bracken
* The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than playing a round of golf. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know when your are finished with it if you are a crook - or a martyr. - Will Rogers
* Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. - H.L. Mencken
* The nation should have a tax system that looks like someone designed it on purpose. - William Simon
* We must care for each other more, and tax each other less. - Bill Archer
* The expenses of government, having for their object the interest of all, should be borne by everyone, and the more a man enjoys the advantages of society, the more he ought to hold himself honored in contributing to those expenses. - Anne Robert, Jacques Turgot
* Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss. - Robert Heinlein
* The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing. - Jean Baptist Colbert
* What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue. - Thomas Paine
* Did you ever notice that when you put the words "The" and "IRS" together, it spells "THEIRS?" - Anonymous
* We have long had death and taxes as the two standards of inevitability. But there are those who believe that death is the preferable of the two. "At least," as one man said, "there's one advantage about death; it doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." - Erwin N. Griswold
* Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today. - Herman Wouk
* Capitol punishment: The income tax. - Jeff Hayes
* If the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, how he must hate the taxpayer! - John Andrew Holmes
* Of course the truth is that the congresspersons are too busy raising campaign money to read the laws they pass. The laws are written by staff tax nerds who can put pretty much put any wording they want in there. I bet that if you actually read the entire vastness of the U.S. Tax Code, you'd find at least one sex scene ("'Yes, yes, YES!' moaned Vanessa as Lance, his taut body moist with moisture, again and again depreciated her adjusted gross rate of annualized fiscal debenture"). - Dave Barry
* People who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women. - Anonymous
* Taxes: Of life's two certainties (other than death), the only one for which you can get an automatic extension. - Anonymous
* 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
* It's income tax time again, Americans: time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil, and stab yourself in the aorta. - Dave Barry
* Man is not like other animals in the ways that are really significant: animals have instincts, we have taxes. - Erving Goffman
* The purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility. Let it be drawn upon largely, and they will then listen to truths which could not excite them through any other organ. - Thomas Jefferson
* To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury. - Benjamin Tucker, Instead of a Book
* Today, it takes more brains and effort to make out the income-tax form than it does to make the income. - Alfred E. Neuman
* A person doesn't know how much he has to be thankful for until he has to pay taxes on it. - Anonymous
* Taxes are paid in the sweat of every man who labors. - Franklin D. Roosevelt
* I am thankful for the taxes I pay because it means that I'm employed. - Nancie J. Carmody
* The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away. - John S. Coleman, address, Detroit Chamber of Commerce, 1956
* Philosophy teaches a man that he can't take it with him; taxes teach him he can't leave it behind either. - Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
* It was as true... as taxes is. And nothing's truer than them. - Charles Dickens
* Death and taxes may be inevitable, but they shouldn't be related. - J.C. Watts, Jr.
* The best things in life are free, but sooner or later the government will find a way to tax them. - Anonymous
* The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. - Ronald Reagan
* I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
* I shall never use profanity except in discussing house rent and taxes. - Mark Twain
* Our tax code is so long it makes War and Peace seem breezy. - Steven LaTourette
* The wages of sin are death, but after they take the taxes out, it's more like a tired feeling, really. - Paula Poundstone
* We are told that this is an odious and unpopular tax. I never knew a tax that was not odious and unpopular with the people who paid it. - John Sherman
* You must pay taxes. But there's no law that says you gotta leave a tip. - Morgan Stanley advertisement
* (Definition of the) U.S. Internal Revenue Service: an agency modeled after the revenue raising concepts of the 19th century economist, Jesse James. - Robert Brault
* If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute. - Thomas Paine
* Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund. - F.J. Raymond (Hmmm... especially when it was your own money in the first place AND returned WITHOUT interest which means the government had FREE use of our money for the past year.)
* There's nothing wrong with the younger generation that becoming taxpayers won't cure. - Dan Bennett
* Pothinus: "Is it possible that Caesar, the conqueror of the world, has time to occupy himself with such a trifle as our taxes?"
Caesar: "My friend, taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world." - George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
See Cartoons by Cartoon by David Fitzsimmons - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon
* There may be liberty and justice for all, but there are tax breaks only for some. - Martin A. Sullivan
* The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government. - Barry Goldwater, Republican Senator
* Taxes grow without rain. - Jewish Proverb
* I don't know if I can live on my income or not - the government won't let me try it. - Bob Thaves, "Frank & Ernest"
* Of all debts, men are least willing to pay their taxes; what a satire this is on government. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
* Friends and neighbors complain that taxes are indeed very heavy, and if those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might the more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. 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
* Any tax is a discouragement and therefore a regulation so far as it goes. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
* Question: "I understand that Congress is considering a so-called 'flat' tax system. How would this work?"
Answer: "If Congress were to pass a 'flat' tax, you'd simply pay a fixed percentage of your income, and you wouldn't have to fill out any complicated forms, and there would be no loopholes for politically connected groups, and normal people would actually understand the tax laws, and giant talking broccoli stalks would come around and mow your lawn for free, because Congress is NOT going to pass a flat tax, you pathetic fool." - comic Dave Barry
* The flat tax would be so simple, you could fill it out on a post card. A post card that would say, in effect, having a wonderful time; glad most of my money is here. - Steve Forbes
* A fine is a tax for doing something wrong. A tax is a fine for doing something right. - Anonymous
* Count the day won when, turning on its axis,
This earth imposes no additional taxes.
- Franklin P. Adams
* Taxation, for example, is eternally lively; it concerns nine-tenths of us more directly than either smallpox or golf, and has just as much drama in it; moreover, it has been mellowed and made gay by as many gaudy, preposterous theories. - H.L. Mencken
* Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. - Calvin Coolidge
* It's about ten times the size of the Bible - and unlike the Bible, contains no good news. - Don Nickles, about the Internal Revenue Code
* The payment of taxes gives a right to protection. - James M. Wayne
* If we don't do something to simplify the tax system, we're going to end up with a national police force of internal revenue agents. - Leon Panetta, former California Congressman, former Chief of Staff for President Clinton, now CIA Director for President Obama (2010)
* What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin. - Mark Twain, Notebook, 1902
* The sales tax seems to be more politically acceptable than the income tax. - Raymond C. Scheppach
* There is an ancient belief that the gods love the obscure and hate the obvious. Without benefit of divinity, modern men of similar persuasion draft provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 341 is their triumph. - Martin D. Ginsburg
* All the Congress, all the accountants and tax lawyers, all the judges, and a convention of wizards all cannot tell for sure what the income tax law says. - Walter B. Wriston
* The politicians say "we" can't afford a tax cut. Maybe "we" can't afford the politicians. - Steve Forbes
* Tax Poem
The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to take,
If the tax-collector hasn't got it before I wake.
- Ogden Nash (a writer and poet with a great sense of humor!)
* Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a refund from the IRS, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with. - Anonymous, from a Washington Post word contest
* You don't pay taxes; they take taxes. - Chris Rock, Bigger and Blacker
* People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can't live within its income. - Robert Half
* Tax complexity itself is a kind of tax. - Max Baucus (it is definitely taxing on the emotions as you run through the labyrinth of ifs, ands and whats to figure out what you owe or can get refunded on that year)
* He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation... For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.... We, therefore... solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States. - The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies, 1776
* I can give you 1040 good reasons why I hate the government. - The Quote Garden (a cheeky quote site!)
And the hardest truth of all in these economic times...
* I am thankful for the taxes I pay because it means that I'm employed. - Nancie J. Carmody
*** ALSO for more fun over at Dennys Funny Quotes:
Check out the tax season update funnies for 2011:
Funny Tax Season: Cartoons and Late Nite Jokes
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