Revenue Collection Quotes

The art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.

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.

What the government gives it must first take away.

The President in the late Executive proceedings in the relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both.

"I pay my taxes," says somebody, as if that were an act of virtue instead of one of compulsion.

Remember that government doesn't earn one single dollar it spends. In order for you to get money from the government, that money must first be taken from somebody else.

I know I've got to pay some tax, but I hate the fact that they collect millions of pounds a day from the congestion charge and I don't see anything or anyone benefitting from it. Where are the new hospitals?

Whether it's a penalty or a tax, it's all one in the same. It's coming out of somebody's hard-earned money in their pocketbooks and that's the point. So in some ways, to me, it's a distinction without a difference.

By its nature, governments and taxes are not voluntary. Government actions are violent and coercive, and theft as well.

I have made revenue collection a frontline institution because it is the one which can emancipate us from begging. If we can get about 22% of GDP we should not need to disturb anybody asking for aid; instead of coming here to bother you, give me this, give me this, I shall come here to greet you, to trade with you.

Government expands to absorb revenue - and then some.

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.

The present Congress have as complete authority to require of the States indefinite supplies of money for the common defense and general welfare, as the future Congress will have to require them of individual citizens; and the latter will be no more bound than the States themselves have been, to pay the quotas respectively taxed on them.

I've always considered the government taking one out of every two dollars I earn absolute tyranny.

Nearly everywhere monarchs raised themselves further above the level of the greatest nobles and buttressed their new pretensions to respect and authority with cannons and taxation.

Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it.

No government can exist without taxation.... This money must of necessity be levied on the people; and the grand art consists in levying so as not to oppress.

By the imposition of a variety of taxes, imposts, stamps, excises and other duties ...[would] squeeze from them [the citizens] the little money they may acquire ...

Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum amount of moo.

In the lexicon of the political class, the word 'sacrifice' means that the citizens are supposed to mail even more of their income to Washington so that the political class will not have to sacrifice the pleasure of spending it.

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

It is a general idea, that when taxes are once laid on, they are never taken off.

It has been possible to trace historically back to a very early age the taxes which were imposed on medicines, spices and similar substances in German towns. Thus, for instance, one finds that in the year 1500, thirteen, in 1540, thirty-eight, and in 1708, already one hundred and twenty vegetable oils are mentioned.

The creed of the Inland Revenue is simple: "If we can bring one little smile to one little face today, then somebody's slipped up somewhere."

On all ships or vessels built within the said States, and belonging wholly to a citizen or citizens thereof; or not built within the said States, but on the twenty-ninth day of May, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, belonging, and during the time such ships or vessels shall continue to belong wholly to a citizen or citizens thereof, at the rate of Six cents per ton. On all ships or vessels hereafter built in the United States, belonging wholly, or in part, to subjects of foreign powers, at the rate of thirty cents per ton. On all other ships or vessels, at the rate of fifty cents per ton.