Tax

"Taxes are what we pay for civilized society."

"Welfare should be built of more taxpayers. Not by higher taxes."

"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."

"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!"

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least amount of hissing."

"Governments create nothing and have nothing to give but what they have first taken away — you may put money in the pockets of one set of Englishmen, but it will be money taken from the pockets of another set of Englishmen, and the greater part will be spilled on the way. Every vote given for Protection is a vote to give Governments the right of robbing Peter to pay Paul and charging the public a handsome commission on the job."

"It has been said, “What does it mean—it is taxpayers’ money.” It is money taken from the pockets of the people of the country; it is taken from the necessities and comforts of the working classes. Agriculture, steel, iron, shipbuilding, are all suffering too, and in some cases and in many parts, the conditions both of hours and labour are worse in those industries than they are in the coal industry, or parts of it. How can you justify the whole country being forced to pay this particular levy almost indefinitely, when there is no prospect of any solution?"

"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."

"World War II was . . . responsible for considerable changes in the U.S. federal income tax. Not only were rates increased, but the base was extended to cover most of the working population. Even as late as 1939, only 6 percent of U.S. citizens had to file an income tax return; by 1945 this had increased to over 70 percent . . . By 1945 the major features of the current federal tax system were in place."

"There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist — the taxidermist leaves the hide."

"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."

"So in a lot of other developed countries, you essentially get a tax return that's already been filled out by the tax agency, and you sort of just look it over and click submit. One of the reasons that doesn't happen here is the influence and lobbying of the for-profit tax prep industries. And there's been really decades of lobbying by that industry to ensure that the IRS doesn't take a sort of more robust role in helping people file their taxes."

"If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing."

"In-tax-i-ca-tion [in-tak-si-KEY-shuh n] (noun) – The short-term euphoria associated with a tax refund that fades when you realize you are getting your own money back, interest-free, over a year later."

"When a government taxes you, it takes something you own without your consent. That’s exactly what a thief does. The main difference is that the thief is breaking the law, whereas the government is (usually) taking your money legally."

"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."

"I’m tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to “keep people in their homes.” Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I’m willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the leftwing Congresscritters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the that created the bubble help them—with their own money."

"The thugs and bullies of the Internal Revenue Service, as properly befits their disposition, consider the tax rebels, the tax resister, the worst of all criminals . . . The marauders of the Internal Revenue Service, with strict quotas for how much they have to squeeze from taxpayers, descend on ordinary working people like locusts and plague them even unto death.”"

"I don't like the income tax. Every time we talk about these taxes we get around to the idea of 'from each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs'. That's socialism. It's written into the Communist Manifesto. Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening to him."

"Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, had interrupted him in a description of his work on electricity to put the impatient inquiry: 'But, after all, what use is it?' Like a flash of lightning came the response: 'Why, sir, there is every probability that you will soon be able to tax it!'"

"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."

"The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partisans and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever. . ."

"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."

"Taxes — money that is taken by that big thief called the government."

"Taxes were part of the decurions’ mandate, and often they collected them, but originally taxpayers perceived them as their representatives, as American scholar noted in the 1920s. If they collected more taxes than expected, they redistributed the surplus among the taxpayers, something which should remain to this day a principle of [taxational] justice but one that not all countries practice."

"Tax offices internationally try to expand the taxation of religious properties by using a variety of arguments. Most of them are not persuasive and raise serious problems of discrimination of minorities and violations of freedom of religion or belief."

"If the state would be allowed to tax religious and spiritual organizations, it would have the power to control them by modulating taxes. As the U.S. Supreme Court stated in the 1819 decision “,” “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.” American legal scholar Ken Jacobsen has discussed the implications of this principle for the Tai Ji Men case. Religious liberty thus requires that religions be tax-exempt, and the exemption in fact preserves the principle of separation rather than denying it."

"No country ever takes notice of the revenue laws of another."

"Taxes are the existence of the state expressed in economic terms. 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."

"Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!"

"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."

"I am not paying taxes because the overwhelming percentage of the budget goes for war purposes. I do not wish to participate in any phase of the collection of such taxes. I do not even want to act as if I think that anyone, including the government, has a right to punish me for an act which I consider honorable."

"The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits."

"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much."

"Members of the privileged groups inside Africa always defend themselves by saying that they pay the taxes which keep the government going. At face value this statement sounds reasonable, but on close examination it is really the most absurd argument and shows total ignorance of how the economy functions. Taxes do not produce national wealth and development. Wealth has to be produced out of nature—from tilling the land or mining metals or felling trees or turning raw materials into finished products for human consumption. These things are done by the vast majority of the population who are peasants and workers. There would be no incomes to tax if the laboring population did not work. The incomes given to civil servants, professionals, merchants, come from the store of wealth produced by the community."

"One of the main purposes of the colonial taxation system was to provide requisite funds for administering the colony as a field of exploitation. European colonizers insured that Africans paid for the upkeep of the governors and police who oppressed them and served as watchdogs for private capitalists. Indeed, taxes and customs duties were levied in the nineteenth century with the aim of allowing the colonial powers to recover the costs of the armed forces which they dispatched to conquer Africa. In effect, therefore, the colonial governments never put a penny into the colonies. All expenses were met by exploiting the labor and natural resources of the continent; and for all practical purposes the expense of maintaining the colonial government machinery was a form of alienation of the products of African labor."

"A country’s wealth comes not from taxes but from production."

"Printing money is merely taxation in another form. Rather than robbing citizens of their money, government robs their money of its purchasing power."

"Taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world."

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

"If ... the tax scheme allows enormous intergenerational wealth transfers within families, some families will maintain considerable socioeconomic advantages over others, which allows them to provide better educations and better environments (both residential and familial) for their children, and their children's children. ... Even in a constitutional democracy in which each citizen has a publicly recognized claim to all the basic political and civil liberties, these socioeconomic inequalities would create an informal social hierarchy by birth: some would be born into great wealth and other social and political advantages while others would be born into poverty and its associated disadvantages. ... If, because a social scheme had the characteristics described above, the life prospects of some children were vastly inferior to those of others, it would be reasonable to regard these disadvantaged children as members of the lowest stratum in a descent-based social hierarchy. When such a hierarchy is, and has long been, marked by racial distinctions, equal citizenship, in any meaningful sense, does not obtain. In a society with an established democratic tradition, such a quasi-feudal order does not warrant the allegiance of its most disadvantaged members, especially when these persons are racially stigmatized. Indeed, the existence of such an order creates the suspicion that, despite the society's ostensible commitment to equal civil rights, white supremacy has simply taken a new form."

"Men who prefer any load of infamy, however great, to any pressure of taxation, however light."

"It is true that the theory of our Constitution is, that all taxes are paid voluntarily; that our government is a mutual insurance company, voluntarily entered into by the people with each other; that each man makes a free and purely voluntary contract with all others who are parties to the Constitution, to pay so much money for so much protection, the same as he does with any other insurance company; and that he is just as free not to be protected, and not to pay any tax, as he is to pay a tax, and be protected.But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a "protector," and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to "protect" those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful "sovereign," on account of the "protection" he affords you. He does not keep "protecting" you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villainies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.The proceedings of those robbers and murderers, who call themselves "the government," are directly the opposite of these of the single highwayman.In the first place, they do not, like him, make themselves individually known; or, consequently, take upon themselves personally the responsibility of their acts. On the contrary, they secretly (by secret ballot) designate some one of their number to commit the robbery in their behalf, while they keep themselves practically concealed."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I hope they don't raise your taxes, but if they do, I told you so."

"There should be left only so much to the Hindus that neither, on the one hand, they should become arrogant on account of their wealth, nor, on the other, desert their lands in despair."

"What is the difference between a taxidermist & a tax-collector? The taxidermist only takes your skin."

"Theft consists of taking a man’s property against his will, regardless of the beneficiary. If the individual has an inalienable right to his own life, liberty and property, then morally his life and property are his to do with as he pleases."

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy."

"Please understand my position. It is, and has always been, the policy of this House to operate on a cash basis; I'm sure you understand why—taxes, a necessary evil, but perhaps more evil than necessary."

"In the usual progress of things, the necessities of a nation in every stage of its existence will be found at least equal to its resources."

"Every good citizen … should be willing to devote a brief time during some one day in the year, when necessary, to the making up of a listing of his income for taxes … to contribute to his Government, not the scriptural tithe, but a small percentage of his net profits."

"If the Government cannot reduce the "terrific" tax burden on the country, I will predict that you will have a depression that will curl your hair, because we are just taking too much money out of this economy that we need to make the jobs that you have to have as time goes on."

"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."

"We shall tax and tax, and spend and spend, and elect and elect."

"“In many parts of the plains thorny jungles grow, behind the good defence of which the people… become stubbornly rebellious… and pay no taxes.”"

"I’m against these aggressive tax avoidance schemes but I’m not just against them, this Government has taken a huge amount of steps to legislate and toughen the laws and go after aggressive tax avoidance schemes for the very simple reason that if people go after these schemes and aggressively avoid tax they’re making it the case that everyone else has to pay higher taxes as a result so I think we should be very clear, tax evasion is illegal and for that you can be prosecuted, you can go to prison for tax evasion. Tax avoidance is in these cases, very aggressive tax avoidance schemes, they are wrong and we should really persuade not to do them and that’s why we have these court cases where the court looks at whether a scheme is really about avoiding tax rather than anything else and the court was very clear in this case."

"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

"The more laws are enacted and taxes assessed, the greater the number of lawbreakers and tax evaders."

"No man in this country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or to his property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel into his stores."

"The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall."

"Every man is entitled if he can to order his affairs so as that the tax attaching under the appropriate Acts is less than it otherwise would be. If he succeeds in ordering them so as to secure this result, then, however unappreciative the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or his fellow taxpayers may be of his ingenuity, he cannot be compelled to pay an increased tax."

"Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes."

"In common with my predecessors I regard tax avoidance schemes of the kind invented and implemented in the present case as no better than attempts to cheat the Revenue."

"Now of course I am minimising my tax … and if anybody in this country doesn't minimise their tax, they want their heads read."

"Dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise. Equality of opportunity has been on the decline. A progressive and meaningful estate tax is needed to curb the movement of a democracy toward plutocracy."

"The free market’s the best mechanism ever devised to put resources to their most efficient and productive use. … The government isn’t particularly good at that. But the market isn’t so good at making sure that the wealth that’s produced is being distributed fairly or wisely. Some of that wealth has to be plowed back into education, so that the next generation has a fair chance, and to maintain our infrastructure, and provide some sort of safety net for those who lose out in a market economy. And it just makes sense that those of us who’ve benefited most from the market should pay a bigger share. … When you get rid of the estate tax, you’re basically handing over command of the country’s resources to people who didn’t earn it. It’s like choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the children of all the winners at the 2000 Games."

"The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion. The State of Pennsylvania now takes--subject to some exceptions--one-tenth of the property left by its citizens. The budget presented in the British Parliament the other day proposes to increase the death-duties ; and,most significant of all, the new tax is to be a graduated one. Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for - public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life."

"It's not fair to tax the same earnings twice—once when you earn them, and again when you die—so we must repeal the death tax."

"In the United States, for example, a majority of the population favors abolition of the estate tax—what the ideologues of the ruling class now call a “death tax”—believing that it affects them, and that it results in the loss of family businesses and farms. In fact, only 2% of the population pays the estate tax, and there is no documented case of families losing their farms or businesses as a result of the tax’s operation. Examples like this—in which the majority have factually inaccurate beliefs, that are in the interests of those with money and power—could, of course, be multiplied. Does this just happen by accident?"

"A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune. No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax; and as an incident to its function of revenue raising, such a tax would help to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity for the people of the generations growing to manhood. We have not the slightest sympathy with that socialistic idea which would try to put laziness, thriftlessness and inefficiency on a par with industry, thrift and efficiency; which would strive to break up not merely private property, but what is far more important, the home, the chief prop upon which our whole civilization stands. Such a theory, if ever adopted, would mean the ruin of the entire country — a ruin which would bear heaviest upon the weakest, upon those least able to shift for themselves. But proposals for legislation such as this herein advocated are directly opposed to this class of socialistic theories. Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: The fact that there are some respects in which men are obviously not equal; but also to insist that there should be an equality of self-respect and of mutual respect, an equality of rights before the law, and at least an approximate equality in the conditions under which each man obtains the chance to show the stuff that is in him when compared to his fellows."

"In recorded history, we’ve never even seen a family that’s lost their farm because of an estate tax. It just does not happen"

"But that doesn’t hurt the imaginations of all these politicians who want to use the family farm as a straw man"

"If ... the tax scheme allows enormous intergenerational wealth transfers within families, some families will maintain considerable socioeconomic advantages over others, which allows them to provide better educations and better environments (both residential and familial) for their children, and their children's children. ... Even in a constitutional democracy in which each citizen has a publicly recognized claim to all the basic political and civil liberties, these socioeconomic inequalities would create an informal social hierarchy by birth: some would be born into great wealth and other social and political advantages while others would be born into poverty and its associated disadvantages. ... If, because a social scheme had the characteristics described above, the life prospects of some children were vastly inferior to those of others, it would be reasonable to regard these disadvantaged children as members of the lowest stratum in a descent-based social hierarchy. When such a hierarchy is, and has long been, marked by racial distinctions, equal citizenship, in any meaningful sense, does not obtain. In a society with an established democratic tradition, such a quasi-feudal order does not warrant the allegiance of its most disadvantaged members, especially when these persons are racially stigmatized. Indeed, the existence of such an order creates the suspicion that, despite the society's ostensible commitment to equal civil rights, white supremacy has simply taken a new form."

"There's a mystic quality about our tax system. No matter how bad it may be from the technical standpoint, it has a vitality because of the very high level of compliance."

"I suspect a complex society requires a complex tax law."

"Well, I would say the biggest factor is confusion between the sort of truly free IRS-sponsored option and then a bunch of commercial options that are advertised as free but are not always free. So it becomes very confusing very quickly."

"Black people should refuse to pay any taxes to the racist government, including federal income, estate and sates taxes, while being subjected to exploitation and brutality. The rich and their corporations pay virtually no taxes; it is the poor and workers who bear the brunt of taxation. Yet they receive nothing in return. There are still huge unemployment levels in the Black community, the unemployment and welfare benefits are paltry; the schools are dilapidated; public housing is a disgrace, while rents by absentee landlord properties are exorbitant — all these conditions and more are supposedly corrected by government taxation of income, goods, and services. Wrong! It goes to the Pentagon, defense contractors, and greedy s, who like vultures prey on business with the government."

"TurboTax is only free for some users, based on the tax forms they need. For many others, Intuit tells them, after they have invested time and effort gathering and inputting into TurboTax their sensitive personal and financial information to prepare their tax returns, that they cannot continue for free; they will need to upgrade to a paid TurboTax service to complete and file their taxes"

"Well, that’s the ordinary income. These great fortunes were not made through ordinary incomes. So you probably have to look to the capital gains rate and the estate tax if you want to, you know, create more equity there."

"For lots of folks, the tax cuts are lost in a sea of other deduction changes, which also happen January 1"

"No is the answer. I think it’s absolutely outrageous. Why should I? [pay US tax]"

"And to all those overburdened by an unfair tax structure, let us provide new hope for real tax reform. Instead of shutting down classrooms, let us shut off tax shelters. Instead of cutting out school lunches, let us cut off tax subsidies for expensive business lunches that are nothing more than food stamps for the rich. The tax cut of our Republican opponents takes the name of tax reform in vain. It is a wonderfully Republican idea that would redistribute income in the wrong direction. It's good news for any of you with incomes over 200,000 dollars a year. For the few of you, it offers a pot of gold worth 14,000 dollars. But the Republican tax cut is bad news for the middle income families. For the many of you, they plan a pittance of 200 dollars a year, and that is not what the Democratic Party means when we say tax reform. The vast majority of Americans cannot afford this panacea from a Republican nominee who has denounced the progressive income tax as the invention of Karl Marx. I am afraid he has confused Karl Marx with Theodore Roosevelt -- that obscure Republican president who sought and fought for a tax system based on ability to pay. Theodore Roosevelt was not Karl Marx, and the Republican tax scheme is not tax reform."

"No taxation without representation."

"The tax refund is often the biggest windfall households receive all year"

"... in terms of business mistakes that I've seen over a long lifetime, I would say that trying to minimize taxes too much is one of the great standard causes of really dumb mistakes. I see terrible mistakes from people being overly motivated by tax considerations. Warren and I personally don't drill oil wells. We pay our taxes. And we've done pretty well, so far. Anytime somebody offers you a tax shelter from here on in life, my advice would be don't buy it. In fact, any time anybody offers you anything with a big commission and a 200-page prospectus, don't buy it. Occasionally, you'll be wrong if you adopt "Munger's Rule". However, over a lifetime, you'll be a long way ahead — and you will miss a lot of unhappy experiences that might otherwise reduce your love for your fellow man."

"The line has been used, "We’ve never had it so good". But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn’t something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector’s share, and yet our government continues to spend $17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven’t balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We’ve raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations in the world. We have $15 billion in gold in our treasury—we don’t own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are $27.3 billion, and we have just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value."

"Today’s tax code contains two sets of rules: one for regular wage and salary workers who report virtually all the income they earn; and another for wealthy taxpayers, who are often able to avoid a large share of the taxes they owe."

"Let's talk about President-elect Trump's other big priorities. Taxes. He's promised a lot of tax cuts. We have a list of some of them here. Let's take a look. Extending the 2017 tax cuts, further slashing the corporate rate, lifting the cap on deductions for state and local taxes, eliminating taxes on tips, overtime and social security benefits and so on; the estimated price of this to the tune of $9 trillion. Do you believe that President-elect Trump will be able to deliver on all of those tax cuts, Senator?"

"There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist — the taxidermist leaves the hide."

"If you drive a car, I'll tax the street, If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat, If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat, If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet. Taxman. ‘Cos I'm the Taxman, Yeah, I'm the Taxman."

"My husband is the tax collector of the sea, Nindara is the tax collector of the sea."

"In many parts of the plains thorny jungles grow, behind the good defence of which the people… become stubbornly rebellious… and pay no taxes."

"The Sultan then asked, "How are Hindus designated in the law, as payers of tributes or givers of tribute? The Kazi replied, "They are called payers of tribute, and when the revenue officer demands silver from them, they should tender gold. If the officer throws dirt into their mouths, they must without reluctance open their mouths to receive it. By doing so they show their respect for the officer. The due subordination of the zimmi is exhibited in this humble payment and by this throwing of dirt in their mouths. The glorification of Islam is a duty, and contempt of the Religion is vain. God holds them in contempt, for he says, "keep them under in subjection". To keep the Hindus in abasement is especially a religious duty, because they are the most inveterate enemies of the Prophet, and because the Prophet has commanded us to slay them, plunder them, and make them captive, saying, 'Convert them to Islam or kill them, enslave them and spoil their wealth and property.'No doctor but the great doctor (Hanifa), to whose school we belong, has assented to the imposition of the jizya (poll tax) on Hindus. Doctors of other schools allow no other alternative but 'Death or Islam.'""

"But the Mogul rule could scarcely be compared with administration by the Indian Civil Service. The brilliant courts were centers of conspicuous consumption on a scale which the Sun King at Versailles might have thought excessive. Thousands of servants and hangers-on, extravagant clothes and jewels and harems and menageries, vast arrays of bodyguards, could be paid for only by the creation of a systematic plunder machine. Tax collectors, required to provide fixed sums for their masters, preyed mercilessly upon peasant and merchant alike; whatever the state of the harvest or trade, the money had to come in. There being no constitutional or other checks—apart from rebellion—upon such depredations, it was not surprising that taxation was known as “eating.” For this colossal annual tribute, the population received next to nothing. There was little improvement in communications, and no machinery for assistance in the event of famine, flood, and plague—which were, of course, fairly regular occurrences. All this makes the Ming dynasty appear benign, almost progressive, by comparison. Technically, the Mogul Empire was to decline because it became increasingly difficult to maintain itself against the Marathas in the south, the Afghanis in the north, and, finally, the East India Company. In reality, the causes of its decay were much more internal than external."

"The Hindu was taxed to the extent of half the produce of his land, and had to pay duties on all his buffaloes, goats, and other milk-cattle. The taxes were to be levied equally on rich and poor, at so much per acre, so much per animal. Any collectors or officers taking bribes were summarily dismissed and heavily punished with sticks, pincers, the rack, imprisonment and chains. The new rules were strictly carried out, so that one revenue officer would string together 20 Hindu notables and enforce payment by blows. No gold or silver, not even the betelnut, so cheering and stimulative to pleasure, was to be seen in a Hindu house, and the wives of the impoverished native officials were reduced to taking service in Muslim families. Revenue officers came to be regarded as more deadly than the plague; and to be a government clerk was disgrace worse than death, in so much that no Hindu would marry his daughter to such a man. ... [These edicts] were so strictly carried out that the chaukidars and khuts and muqad-dims were not able to ride on horseback, to find weapon, to wear fine clothes, or to indulge in betel. . .... No Hindu could hold up his head. ..... Blows, confinement in the stocks, imprisonment and chains were all employed to enforce payment. ""

"…The abolition of jizyah in Hindustan is a result of friendship which (Hindus) have acquired with the rulers of this land… What right have the rulers to stop exacting jizyah? Allah himself has commanded imposition of jizyah for their (infidels’) humiliation and degradation. What is required is their disgrace, and the prestige and power of Muslims. The slaughter of non-Muslims means gain for Islam…"

"The real purpose of levying jiziya on them is to humiliate them to such an extent that they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It is intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honour and might of Islam."

"According to Mulla Ahmad, "the main object of levying of Jiziyah on them... is their humiliation... God established (the custom of realising) Jiziyah for their dishonour. The object is their humiliation and the (establishment of) prestige and dignity of the Muslims." Sri Ram Sharma reproduces Aurangzeb's order about the imposition and collection of Jiziyah dated 26th July, 1696. It says that "Jiziyah lapses on death and on acceptance of Islam"."

"In fine, the tribute you demand from the Hindus is repugnant to justice; it is equally foreign from good policy, as it must impoverish the country; moreover, it is an innovation and an infringement of the laws of Hindostan."

"Thomas Roll, the president of the English factory in Surat wrote that jizyah was exacted by Aurangzeb for the duel purpose of enriching the treasury and for ‘‘forcing the poorer sections of the population to become Muslims.’’"

"Muslim Asophs [asaf] or Lord Lieutenants . . . superintend large divisions of the country; and this greatly increased the evil; for these men, entirely sunk in indolence, voluptuousness and ignorance, confident of favour from the bigotry of their sovereign, and destitute of principle, universally took bribes to supply their wants; and the delinquencies of the Brahmans were doubled, to make good the new demands of the Asophs, over and above their former profits. Owing to this system, although the Sultan had laid on many new taxes, the actual receipts of the treasury never equaled those in the time of his father. The Amildars, under various pretexts of unavoidable emergency, reported prodigious outstanding balances; while they received, as bribes from the cultivators, a part of the deductions so made. Although the taxes actually paid by the people to government were thus much lighter than they had been in the administration of Hyder, the industrious cultivator was by no means in so good a condition, as formerly. The most frivolous pretexts were received, as sufficient cause for commencing a criminal prosecution against any person supposed to be rich; and nothing but a bribe could prevent an accused individual from ruin."

"He [Tipu] had great aversion to non-Muslims and this feeling became stronger by the ungrateful attitude of the Brahman revenue officials. After 1792, therefore, he placed the faithful Muslims in more of the important offices like the asofdaries and amildaries. Of the diwans or provincial revenue heads in 1792 only one was a Hindu. Of 65 asofs and deputy asofs in 1797–98 not one was a non-Muslim and almost all the principal mustaddis even were Muslim, whole of the 26 Mysore civil and military officers captured by the British in 1792 and demanded back by Tipu, six only were Hindus and even they were petty clerks. The communalization of offices in the Khodadad Sirkar began much earlier than 1792 but was intensified after the third Anglo–Mysore War . . . Strangely, the result was . . . the diminution of revenue . . . The officials so appointed to posts requiring deep knowledge and great patience . . . could scarcely read and write . . . the candidates were seldom chosen for any other reason than their being Mohamedans . . . he would promote a tipdar (commander of a hundred men) or a petty amildar to be a Meer Meeran (the highest military rank); and raise a risaldar to the honours of a Meer Asof (a member of the Board of Revenue) or a wretched Killedar . . . to those of a Meer Suddm (superintendent general of forts) . . . another change was the introduction of Persian as the medium of accounts in the revenue department. It was so far the practice in Mysore for the tarafdars to make out the revenue accounts in Kannada, fair copies of which were communicated to the amildars who had them translated into Marathi. Copies in both languages were kept under separate and independent officers meant as a reciprocal check . . . Tipu ordered the accounts to be submitted in Persian probably to help his Muslim officers and perhaps to Persianise [sic] Mysore . . . this change must have resulted in widening the gulf between the higher officials who were Muslims and their Hindu subordinates.21"

"Even in the Revenue Code . . . Tipu exhibited his communal tendencies. Mussulmans were exempted from paying the house-tax and taxes on grains and other goods meant for their personal use and not for trade. Christians were seized and deported to the capital, and their property confiscated. Converts to Islam were given concessions such as exemption from taxes. Special attention was given to the education of Muslim children."

"We have a brilliant inscription authored in the third regnal year of the King Parthivendradhipati Varman, which throws brilliant light on the spirit of the era and the nature of the people embodying the spirit. It was issued by the members of the Great Assembly (Mahānāḍu) of Uttaramelur- Caturvedimaṅgalam. Here is how it reads: We, the members of this Great Assembly, having received Pūrvācāraṁ from Sandiran Eḷunnūruva Nuḷamba Māyilaṭṭi for the above land, ordered it to be free from all taxes as long as the moon and sun last. We shall not show any kind of tax… against this land. We, the members of this Great Assembly, have also ordered that if any such taxes are shown against it, each person so showing, shall be liable to pay a fine of twenty-five Kaḷan̄ju of gold in the Dharmāsana or court of justice."

"However, along with these beneficial measures for the peasants, differential treatment for people of various faiths was inherently embedded in Tipu’s revenue regulations. Clause 63 of the regulations stated: ‘The Deostan [Hindu temple] lands are all to be resumed throughout your district; and after ascertaining to what simpts [sub-divisions] they formerly appertained, you shall re-annex them, and include them in the jummabundy [revenue assessment] of those simpts.’14 This meant that the grants given to the temple establishments had to be cancelled and confiscated by the government. That the Amildar was a Brahmin and had to do this to temples of his own faith would have been a hugely discomforting act for him."

"Encouraging conversion to Islam, clause 73 states: Every person who shall become a convert to the Mahomedan faith, if he be a reyut [ryot], shall only pay half the usual assessment and shall be exempted from the payment of house tax; and if he is dealer in merchandize, his goods shall pass duty-free.18"

"I changed my mind about living here [won't cut it]"

"Next year, all my capital gains may be subject to a 25% cap gains rate"

"Well, that’s the ordinary income. These great fortunes were not made through ordinary incomes. So you probably have to look to the capital gains rate and the estate tax if you want to, you know, create more equity there."

"The proposal includes a 3% surcharge on individual income above $5 million and a capital gains tax of 25%."

"The Blairs pay full tax on all their earnings. And have never used offshore schemes either to hide transactions or avoid tax."

"[ South Dakota and Nevada are among the U.S. states that have] adopted financial secrecy laws that rival those of w:offshore jurisdictions"

"The ability to hide money has a direct impact on your life... it affects your child's access to education, access to health, access to a home"

"We're able to see how this parallel universe really works in a way we've never been able to before"

"We're talking about presidents, we're talking about prime ministers. We're talking about rock stars. We're talking about porn stars and people that have been convicted of crimes all over the world"

"[We would] crack down on the unfair schemes that give big corporations a leg up. It’s time to deal in hardworking Americans and ensure the super-wealthy pay their fair share"

"[The US should] dramatically expand its current earned-income tax credit, a form of negative income tax that pays low-earners instead of asking them to pay income tax..."

"There's a special place in hell for people who prey on children. I've yet to see a valid explanation and I have no reason to doubt the victims' accounts."

"Note to Republicans: If we raised the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, and created jobs in the areas left behind, then Americans wouldn’t need nutritional assistance to feed their families."

"We will deliver the largest working- and middle-class tax cut in a generation. Up to $500 a month to help America's families make ends meet"

"[allow the child-care expenses incurred on Saturdays] to allow (the parent) to hold full-time employment from Monday to Friday"

"You get a tax break for a racehorse, why in God's name couldn't we provide an $8,000 tax credit for everybody who has childcare costs? It would put 720 million women back in the workforce. It would increase the GDP, to sound like a wonk here, by about eight-tenths of one percent. It would grow the economy."

"[Failing to act could spark an economic catastrophe] Nearly 50 million seniors could stop receiving Social Security checks for a time. Troops could go unpaid. Millions of families who rely on the monthly child tax credit could see delays."

"In a matter of days, millions of Americans could be strapped for cash"

"Important changes to the Child Tax Credit are helping many families get advance payments of the credit:"

"Welcome to the IRS. Live telephone assistance is not available at this time. Normal operations will resume as soon as possible"

"We thank the Treasury and IRS employees who have been working diligently to ensure the system is processing these returns efficiently"

"More than 9 out of 10 refunds are issued in less than 21 days"

"The Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020, enacted December 27, 2020, made a number of changes to the employee retention tax credits previously made available under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), including modifying and extending the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), for six months through June 30, 2021. Several of the changes apply only to 2021, while others apply to both 2020 and 2021."

"When Should You Call the IRS?"

"The question must be answered by all taxpayers, not just taxpayers who engaged in a transaction involving virtual currency. Do not leave this field blank"

"Refunds have been a source of abuse recently, but we need to make sure taxpayers have proper due process when the IRS decides to freeze a refund. [Taxpayers] can't effectively challenge the IRS' actions."

"I’m actually very confident that they’re going to be able to identify that type of talent and bring that talent in the door. Because this is going to be an IRS that for the first time in its history actually has the tools that it needs to fight this David and Goliath tax battle against wealthy tax evaders and large corporations."

"Another factor to consider is your overall investment strategy. Tax-loss harvesting can be beneficial in the short term, but it should not be the driving factor behind your investment decisions. It’s important to make sure that you are making decisions based on your long-term goals and investment horizon."

"Donald Trump did it again, totally reversing himself, claiming that he will reverse the cap on state and local deductions. But Donald Trump must be suffering from selective amnesia, because he was the one who took away people’s SALT deductions in the first place."