A Quote by P. J. O'Rourke

In theory, taxes should be like shopping. What I buy is government services. What I pay are my taxes. — © P. J. O'Rourke
In theory, taxes should be like shopping. What I buy is government services. What I pay are my taxes.
By the standards of honest, if unorthodox, accounting, government workers don't pay taxes, but are paid out of taxes. In other words, they pay taxes out of money confiscated from taxpayers, who, in turn, pay taxes twice: on their own income and on the income of members of the bureaucracy. At the very least, this should disqualify state workers from voting.
The government taxes you when you bring home a paycheck. It taxes you when you make a phone call. It taxes you when you turn on a light. It taxes you when you sell a stock. It taxes you when you fill your car with gas. It taxes you when you ride a plane. It taxes you when you get married. Then it taxes you when you die. This is taxual insanity and it must end.
Let me respond with a few points, the first being that all immigrants pay taxes, income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, cigarette taxes, every tax when they make a purchase.
The theory of government I was taught says that government provides benefits, primarily security, to the entire population. In return we pay taxes. But lately the government has been a distributor of special privileges, taking money from some and giving it to others. America is now about evenly split between those who pay income taxes and those who consume them.
Rich people don't pay taxes? Of course they pay taxes - they pay tons in taxes. They pay for everyone else who doesn't pay taxes.
Between income taxes and employment taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, corporate taxes, property taxes, Social Security taxes, we're being taxed to death.
Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine.
Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don't pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.
We need to have more taxes, not less, and we need the taxes we have, certainly, to provide services - for defense and education and health care. We should not cut money here in order to cut taxes.
I believe that hardworking people should retain as much of the money as they can in terms of the taxes that they pay. But I think everybody should pay their taxes.
Buttercup's mother whirled on him. 'Did you forget to pay your taxes?' (This was after taxes. But everything is after taxes. Taxes were here even before stew.)
There's no reason to raise taxes. Taxes should be lower... The problem we have is that government spends too much, not that taxes are too low.
People like me, whose income largely comes from dividends, should pay more taxes. The problem is that taxes aren't used efficiently.
I would say you have an ethical obligation to pay the taxes that you owe, but you don't have an ethical obligation to pay taxes that you don't owe. In fact, you should be seeking ways to legally minimise your taxes.
Why should an atheist pay more taxes so that a church which he despises should pay no taxes? That's a fair question. How can the apologists for the church exemption answer it?
You could not possibly maintain the current level of government taxation without the taxes being hidden, and they are hidden in two very different ways. They are hidden through withholding, but they are also hidden by being imposed on business, supposedly on business, when really, of course, business can't pay taxes, only people can pay taxes.
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