1.
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
2.
I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.
Milton Friedman
3.
Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.
Calvin Coolidge
5.
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
8.
The old liberal rebelled against taxation without responsibility, the new liberal wants the taxation as a handout without responsibility.
Fulton J. Sheen
9.
Government spending is taxation. When you look at this, I've never heard of a poor person spending himself into prosperity; let alone I've never heard of a poor person taxing himself into prosperity.
Arthur Laffer
10.
In america, there are two tax systems: one for the informed and one for the uninformed. Both are legal
Learned Hand
11.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
12.
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
13.
If it is the duty of the State to educate, it is the duty of the State also to bear the burden of education, namely, the taxation out of which education is provided.
Edmund Barton
14.
I think coercive taxation is theft, and government has a moral duty to keep it to a minimum.
William Weld
15.
All taxes discourage something. Why not discourage bad things like pollution rather than good things like working?
Lawrence Summers
16.
I told the Inland Revenue I didn't owe them a penny because I lived near the seaside.
Ken Dodd
17.
Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt.
William Cobbett
18.
Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
Milton Friedman
19.
Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor.
Robert Nozick
20.
I return my tax bill without paying it. My reason for doing so is that women suffer taxation yet have not representation.
Lucy Stone
21.
The greed and envy of the nonproducer is insatiable, so that eventually nothing short of 100% taxation will appease him.
Robert Ringer
22.
An expropriating property protector (the state, through taxation) is a contradiction in terms
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
23.
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
25.
Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum amount of moo.
Terry Pratchett
26.
You don't pay taxes - they take taxes.
Chris Rock
27.
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
28.
Contrary to any claim of a systematically “neutral” effect of taxation on production, the consequence of any such shortening of roundabout methods of production is a lower output produced. The price that invariably must be paid for taxation, and for every increase in taxation, is a coercively lowered productivity that in turn reduces the standard of living in terms of valuable assets provided for future consumption. Every act of taxation necessarily exerts a push away from more highly capitalized, more productive production processes in the direction of a hand-to-mouth-existence.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
30.
Taxation being a burthen, must needs weigh lightest on each individual, when it bears upon all alike.
Jean-Baptiste Say
31.
But we need to quit taxing people upon death. No taxation without respiration.
Steve King
32.
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.
Andrew Mellon
33.
This is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free, but the taxation is mortal. You come when you can, and leave when you must. The show is continuous. Goodnight.
Robertson Davies
34.
Our domestic problems are for the most part economic. We have our enormous debt to pay, and we are paying it. We have the high cost of government to diminish, and we are diminishing it. We have a heavy burden of taxation to reduce, and we are reducing it. But while remarkable progress has been made in these directions, the work is yet far from accomplished.
Calvin Coolidge
36.
The Declaration of Independence, the words that launched our nation -- 1,300 words. The Bible, the word of God -- 773,000 words. The Tax Code, the words of politicians -- 7,000,000 words -- and growing!
Steve Forbes
37.
Everything a politician promises at election time has to be paid for either by higher taxation or by borrowing.
Margaret Thatcher
38.
The welfare state is an enemy of private property. The excessive taxation used to support the welfare state is extremely dangerous.
Charles A. Murray
39.
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
40.
To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, 'to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.' For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union.
Thomas Jefferson
41.
The officers of Congress, may come upon you now, fortified with all the terrors of paramount federal authority. Excisemen taxmen may come in multitudes; for the limitation of their numbers no man knows. They may, unless the general government be restrained ... go into your cellars and rooms, and search, ransack, and measure, everything you eat, drink, and wear.
Patrick Henry
42.
Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.
Thomas Paine
43.
Taxation under every form presents but a choice of evils.
David Ricardo
44.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure.
Mark Skousen
45.
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
46.
The crime of taxation is not in the taking it, it's in the way that it's spent.
Will Rogers
47.
This is a form of double taxation and it's simply unfair.
Doc Hastings
48.
Governments first of all have been able to amass, through the taxation process, large sums of capital which they have redistributed to persons or groups, already large holders of capital, through official subsidies.
Immanuel Wallerstein
49.
Should government refrain from regulation (taxation), the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud can no longer be concealed.
John Maynard Keynes
50.
A European currency will lead to member-nations transferring their sovereignty over financial and wage policies as well as in monetary affairs... It is an illusion to think that States can hold on to their autonomy over taxation policies.
Hans Tietmeyer