“If a bunch of activists want to create the concept of "gay infertility" and then tax all the rest of us to compensate them for the fact that they can't have babies, then that's gonna happen. You haven't missed anything yet. I'm just teasing you as to what's coming. Gays now think it's not fair they can't have babies, so they're calling that "infertility," and it will require mandatory health insurance because of it. Yeah, I know they're not infertile but that doesn't matter; they can't have babies.” IfsThinkingKnowsWantMatterFactsHappensHavensBabyCallingGayTaxesConceptsFairsYeahBunchActivistTeaseNot FairInfertility Author:Rush Limbaugh
“Is it wrong to love another man? Of course not. It's not. And is it wrong to love your son, marry your son, to avoid paying taxes? Of course the people that would probably do this are people on the left who want everybody to pay more taxes.” PeopleMenWantCoursesLeftPayLove YouSonTaxesAnother ManYour SonPaying Taxes Author:Rush Limbaugh
“We're in a very Orwellian situation where when we - we've slashed defense. And we've raised taxes. And we consider $600 billion annual deficit success because it's not $1 trillion.” SituationTaxesRaisedDefenseBillionsDeficitAnnualsOrwellian Author:Victor Davis Hanson
“[the Republicans] have come up with nothing. They say repeal and replace. That has alliteration. But that's all it has going for it because they don't have a replacement. What they have put forth and outlined will cost more to consumers. It will cover fewer people. It will give tax breaks to the wealthiest people.” PeopleGivingBreakRepublicanCostTaxesCome UpConsumersFewerReplacementsTax BreaksGoing For ItAlliteration Author:Nancy Pelosi
“Imagine in what the president [Donald trump] wants to do, the 400 wealthiest families in America will get a tax break of $7 million a year.” WantYearsAmericaPresidentBreakMillionsImagineTrumpTaxesTax Breaks Author:Nancy Pelosi
“If top marginal income tax rates are set too high, they discourage productive economic activity. In the limit, a top marginal income tax rate of 100 percent would mean that taxpayers would gain nothing from working harder or investing more. In contrast, a higher top marginal rate on consumption would actually encourage savings and investment. A top marginal consumption tax rate of 100 percent would simply mean that if a wealthy family spent an extra dollar, it would also owe an additional dollar of tax.” IfsMeanEconomicHigherActivityLimitsTaxesPercentGainsHarderDollarsInvestmentRateInvestingIncomeSavingExtrasProductiveWealthyContrastConsumptionTaxpayersSavingsDiscouragingIncome TaxSavings And Investment Author:Robert H. Frank
“No one could argue with a straight face that the couples getting married today are much happier just because their wedding celebrations cost three times as much as those in 1980. Bigger mansions and costlier parties are wasteful in the same sense that larger antlers on all bull elk are wasteful. The good news is that simple changes in the tax system can eliminate much of this waste without having to deny people the right to decide for themselves how best to spend their money.” PeopleTodayFacesThreeSimplePartyCoupleCostTaxesWasteMarriedNewsBiggerDenyArguingCelebrationGood NewsThree TimesBullsGetting MarriedMansionsTax SystemStraight FaceElkAntlers Author:Robert H. Frank
“In a sense, George W. Bush has used the tragedy of the terrorist attacks of September 11th and the nightmarish expansion of his idea of a war on terror to overshadow his actual conduct in office on the redistribution of wealth upward through progressive tax cuts that actually penalize the vast majority of the public, and shift their resources to a narrow band at the very, very top.” IdeasWarUsedWealthCuttingBandTaxesOfficeResourcesTragedyMajorityTerrorTerroristProgressiveSeptemberExpansionSeptember 11War On TerrorTax CutsTerrorist AttacksSeptember 11thRedistribution Of WealthProgressive Tax Author:Sidney Blumenthal
“There are certain areas where foreign investors can help the local people to generate wealth, and improve their quality of life. Some companies, for example, Del Monte, which produces pineapples in Kenya, pay a huge amount of taxes, I am sure, to the Kenyan government, and they do create jobs for thousands of locals.” PeopleHelpingGovernmentJobsCertainWealthPayQualityCompanyExampleProduceHugeAmountTaxesAreasLocalsInvestorsQuality Of LifeKenyaPineapples Author:Wangari Maathai
“Do I think Donald Trump can run the country a lot better and get along with other countries like Russia? Absolutely he can do a better job. He can create a stimulus. He can lower taxes.” ThinkingCountryRunningJobsCan DoTrumpTaxesRussiaOther CountriesStimulusBetter Jobs Author:Doug Ford, Jr.
“Would I feel comfortable with Hillary Clinton taking care of my money down there? That I pay the taxes, corporate taxes down there? I wouldn't feel comfortable at all. They've just continuously spent money and people are up to here with it.” PeopleFeelsCarePayTaxesComfortableClintonCorporate Author:Doug Ford, Jr.
“In order to function and pay our bills and our taxes and feed our families and stuff, musicians have to make a living. It's not about being a millionaire. It's about being able to survive. When there are people constantly stealing from you, it's quite frustrating. It's a matter of changing the public's option about doing it.” PeopleMatterAbleOrderStuffPayTaxesMusicianFunctionBillsStealingOur FamilyFrustratingMillionaire Author:Matt Snell
“If you want to see where Trump is moving, look at what the United States neoliberals advised Russia to do after 1991, when they promised to create an ideal economy. Russia was under the impression that the neoliberal advisors were going to make Russia as rich as the United States. What they really did was create a kleptocracy that was virtually tax-free.” IfsWantLooksStatesMovingUnitedUnited StatesEconomyRichTrumpTaxesIdealsRussiaImpressionAdvisors Author:Michael Hudson
“On the flat tax, the more you compress the tax rates, the more you untax where the income is really made, at the top of the pyramid.” MadeTaxesRateIncomeFlatsPyramidsFlat Tax Author:Michael Hudson
“From 2008 to 2016 all the growth in the American economy, all the growth in national income, was earned just by the wealthiest 5% of the population. So they got all the growth. 95% of the population didn't grow. If you can get a flat tax or other lower tax, as Trump is suggesting, then this richest 5% will be able to keep even more money. That means that the 95% will be even poorer than they were before, relative to the very top.” IfsMeanAbleGrowsGrowthEconomyTrumpTaxesPopulationIncomeFlatsRelativeMore MoneySuggestingAmerican EconomyFlat Tax Author:Michael Hudson
“Trump's junk economics is the illusion that if we cut the taxes on the wealthiest brackets, it'll all trickle down. But it doesn't trickle down.” IfsCuttingTrumpTaxesIllusionEconomicsJunkTrickle DownBrackets Author:Michael Hudson
“What do the 5%, or the 1% actually use their money for? They lend it back to the economy at large, they load it down with debt. They make their money by lending to the bottom 95%, or the bottom 99%. When you give them more after-tax income, it enables them to buy even more control of government, even more control of election campaigns. They're not going to spend this money back into the goods-and-services economy.” GivingUseGovernmentEconomyTaxesElectionBottomDebtCampaignsIncomeGoodsLoadLendingGoods And Services Author:Michael Hudson
“In real estate you can avoid ever having to pay a capital gains tax, decade after decade, century after century. When you sell a property and make a capital gain, you simply turn around and buy a new property. The gain is not taxed. It's called "preserving your capital investment" - which goes up and up in value with each transaction.” RealValuesTurnsPayCenturyTaxesGainsSellsPropertyInvestmentDecadesEstatesTransactionsCapital GainsCapital InvestmentCapital Gains Tax Author:Michael Hudson
“If you're a wealthy heir with a trust fund, and you sell stocks, make your 10% gains since Donald Trump, and then you buy other stocks, you can avoid paying taxes. And if your accountant registers your wealth offshore in a Panamanian fund, like Russian kleptocrats do - and as more and more Americans do - you don't have to pay any tax at all, because it's not American income, it's foreign income in an enclave without an income tax.” IfsWealthPayTrumpTaxesGainsSellsIncomeFundWealthyRegisterIncome TaxHeirsAccountantsPaying TaxesOffshoreTrust Funds Author:Michael Hudson
“The biggest industrial sector next to real estate is oil, gas and other mineral resources. They don't report any taxable income, because if you depict yourself as earning a profit, you have to pay a tax on it. So, it's all about what accountants choose to declare as profit.” IfsRealNextPayTaxesResourcesProfitOilIncomeReportsGasEstatesEarningAccountantsMineralsMineral Resources Author:Michael Hudson
“Textbooks don't teach people how to avoid paying any income tax. But that's what an army of tax lawyers and corporate tax accountants do.” PeopleTeachTaxesArmyLawyerIncomeCorporateIncome TaxTextbooksAccountants Author:Michael Hudson
“Trump's claims that he's making taxes more democratic for the people, but it actually is a vast sucking of income and wealth upward.” PeopleWealthTrumpTaxesClaimsDemocraticIncome Author:Michael Hudson
“The worst loophole is what Donald Trump has talked about: the tax deductibility of interest. If you let real estate owners or corporate raiders borrow the money to buy a property or company, and then pay interest to the bondholders, you'll load the company you take over with debt. But you don't have to pay taxes on the profits that you pay out in this way. You can deduct the interest from your tax liability.” IfsWayRealInterestPayCompanyWorstTrumpTaxesPropertyProfitDebtCorporateOwnersLoadEstatesLiabilityLoopholesRaiders Author:Michael Hudson
“Trump has said that he wants to remove the tax deductibility of interest. If he can do that, fine. But I hope that Trump knows that it's not the President that sets tax policy. It's Congress.” IfsKnowsWantSaidPresidentInterestCan DoPolicyFineTrumpTaxesCongressRemove Author:Michael Hudson
“One thing I think we have to do is to make sure that the undocumented workers who are living in America today, that they have to take responsibility. They've got to register, pay a fine, pay their back taxes, learn English and then get on a pathway in which they could have the prospect of being here legally.” ThinkingTodayAmericaPayResponsibilityOne ThingFineTaxesWorkersTaking ResponsibilityPathwaysRegisterAmerica TodayUndocumented Workers Author:Barack Obama
“You have a sense that [Donald] Trump will probably reimagine where the Republican Party is on that issue and some others. But then I think conservatives may win in some areas, too - tax reform. So it's just - it's an enormously exciting time in terms of the possibilities.” ThinkingMayWinningTermPartyIssuesPossibilityTrumpRepublicanTaxesAreasExcitingReformRepublican PartyTax Reform Author:Margaret Hoover
“When we remember presidents who didn't fulfill their promises - for instance George H.W. Bush saying no new taxes or Barack Obama saying he would close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay - we remember those because they're the exceptions, not the rule.” RememberPresidentPromiseTaxesInstanceBarackExceptionFacilitySaying NoDetentionGuantanamoGuantanamo BayGeorge H W Bush Author:Evan Osnos
“People who have been hardworking, tax paying, those people ought to be given an opportunity to be on a track that leads towards citizenship and if that happened, then they wouldn't be prey to the employers who say we want you because we know that you work for a salary we could not lawfully pay anyone else.” PeopleIfsKnowsWantHas BeensOpportunityGivenPayHappenedOughtTaxesTrackCitizenshipPreyEmployersSalaryHardworking Author:Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“The states is where resistance is opposition to Obamacare is taking place. The states is where tax reform is taking place, starting. The states is where whatever opposition to the latest crisis of the day is, be it health care, immigration, or guns. The states - the majority of which have Republican governors - are where this is all being dealt with, and you're not hearing about it. They don't get a lot of press coverage, but that's where this is happening.” StatesCareRepublicanTaxesHappeningsGunCrisisMajorityPressesStartingHearingImmigrationResistanceReformHealth CareOppositionGovernorsObamacareCoverageTax Reform Author:Rush Limbaugh
“The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 80 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed.” YearsGovernmentCenturyTaxesYears AgoClaimsExperimentsIncomeSocialistTwentieth CenturyIncome TaxTariffs Author:Alan Keyes
“Every nation-state tends towards the imperial - that is the point. Through banks, armies, secret police, propaganda, courts and jails, treaties, taxes, laws and orders, myths of civil obedience, assumptions of civic virtue at the top. Still it should be said of the political left, we expect something better. And correctly. We put more trust in those who show a measure of compassion, who denounce the hideous social arrangements that make war inevitable and human desire omnipresent; which fosters corporate selfishness, panders to appetites and disorder, waste the earth.” ShouldHumansSaidStillsWarStatesShowsEarthLawPoliticalDesireOrderLeftNationsSocialSecretCompassionVirtueTaxesWasteArmyPoliceCourtMythInevitableSelfishnessObedienceCorporatePropagandaAssumptionJailDisorderAppetiteArrangementsSomething BetterTreatiesCivicsHideousLaw And OrderSecret PoliceCivic Virtue Author:Daniel Berrigan
“The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.” StillsHumorFunnyBusinessTaxesIntellectualEconomicsRewardsPursuitFinanceCarrieTaxationAvoidanceTax DayTaxes Funny Author:John Maynard Keynes
“If you don't want to use your tax credit to go by health insurance, you don't have to. If you don't want to buy this plan, you want to buy that plan, go for it, it's your choice. It's called freedom. It's called free market health care.” IfsWantUseCareChoicesPlansTaxesCreditHealth CareFree Market Author:Paul Ryan
“Care work produces public goods, and should be supported in families by policies such as paid parental leave and caregiver tax credits, and by investments in good training and wages for caregiving, including early childhood education, in the market.” ShouldCareChildhoodPolicyProduceTaxesTrainingPaidInvestmentIncludingCreditGoodsWagesParentalEarly ChildhoodCaregiversCaregivingEarly Childhood Education Author:Riane Eisler
“Trump has to do what Reagan did. Trump's gotta go on the air and tell us what his tax plan is and put it in our faces and put them on the spot. That's what I think he should do.” ThinkingShouldFacesPlansAirGoes OnTrumpTaxesSpots Author:Scott Baio
“When I first got money, I went through it like everybody else, because I didn't know. But, right now, I've educated myself and placed smart people around me. I surrounded myself with people who not only are intelligent and effective about finances, taxes, and money management, but they (also) love me.” PeopleKnowsFirstsRight NowTaxesSmartIntelligentManagementFinanceEducatedSmart PeopleMoney Management Author:Steve Harvey
“I organized tax resistance in 1965, with a friend. I kept at it for about ten years. I don't see it as a principle, it's a tactic. And I felt I had exhausted its potential as a tactic right about then, so I stopped.” YearsFeltPrinciplesTenTaxesResistanceOrganizedExhaustedTactics Author:Noam Chomsky
“I should say that Canada is one of the major criminals, not just the tar sands and so on, but even mining throughout the world, a lot of it is Canadian. It's extremely destructive, so an important thing for Canadians to do is curtail the predatory and destructive behavior of their own government and corporations. A carbon tax is one way of doing it.” WorldWayShouldImportantGovernmentTaxesBehaviorMajorsImportant ThingsCriminalsOne WayCorporationsCanadaSandDestructiveCarbonMiningPredatoryCarbon TaxDestructive Behavior Author:Noam Chomsky
“Everything [Ronald Reagan] got, the tax cuts, he had Democrats outnumbering him in the House and Senate everywhere. There were certain realities that he faced. But the biggest tax increase on Social Security was authored by none other than Bill Clinton.” RealityCertainHouseSocialCuttingSecurityTaxesIncreaseBillsClintonDemocratSenateSocial SecurityTax CutsTax Increases Author:Rush Limbaugh
“We can't afford to waste people. We can't afford to have people think the game is over before it's begun. We've got to be saying to the Canadian people: you can't tax cut your way to a productive 21st-century economy. You can talk that talk, but it's not going to give you a productive 21st-century economy, because it will scythe apart the public goods that make prosperity possible. That's what we've got to say, and so we shall.” PeopleThinkingWayGivingGamesEconomyCuttingCenturyTaxesWasteProsperityProductiveGoods21st CenturyTax CutsScythes Author:Michael Ignatieff
“I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn't like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all-time low.” PeoplePresidentRichCuttingTaxesBenefitsWeaponsMassLowsCriticismDestructionClaimsResponseIraqHearingAll TimeRacistSuggestionsLiedWeapons Of Mass DestructionMass DestructionKatrinaAll Time Low Author:George W. Bush
“When Obama talks about raising taxes on the rich, he's looking at me.” RichTaxesRaising Taxes Author:Kenny Chesney
“We may end up with a world based more on equity than debt, or more on market debt instruments than bank intermediation; but how and why we get there is a mystery. Absent significant regulatory or tax changes, and a sharp transition could be disruptive.” WorldMayEndsMysteryTaxesInstrumentsDebtSignificantTransitionEquityAbsentDisruptive Author:Alan M. Taylor
“Our international banking system allows banks to accept funds gained from tax evasion and other crimes and thereby facilitates and encourages embezzlement by public officials, especially in developing countries, as well as tax evasion and tax avoidance by multinational corporations.” WellsCountryAcceptingCrimeTaxesInternationalDevelopingCorporationsOfficialsFundBankingAvoidanceFacilitateEvasionDeveloping CountriesBanking SystemMultinationalsPublic OfficialsMultinational CorporationsEmbezzlementTax Evasion Author:Thomas Pogge
“In Quebec, we can no longer increase taxes if we want to stay competitive.” IfsWantTaxesIncreaseQuebec Author:Philippe Couillard
“I think that [Barack Obama] does say something that's - that is telling on that score, when he talks about the [George W.] Bush tax cuts and the swap he makes after the midterm elections, which is he doesn't agree with the Bush tax cuts.” ThinkingDoeCuttingTaxesElectionAgreeBarackScoreTax CutsMidtermsMidterm Elections Author:Ron Suskind
“You also want to look at how the tax system encourages and rewards pension saving. I have set as an ambition reversing the effects of Gordon Brown's tax raid which heralded the beginning of the age of responsibility. We are looking at some very specific tax measures on how we can encourage saving.” WantLooksAgeResponsibilityEffectsTaxesAmbitionRewardsSavingBrownPensionTax System Author:George Osborne
“People know that billions of pounds are wasted. Billions of pounds never get near the families that need it. It is an absolute outrage that hard-working people go out to work every day, get up early, come back late, don't see enough of their families in order to pay taxes to fund vast bureaucracies that are inefficient in order to fund a welfare system which allows too many people to sit for the whole of their lives on out-of-work benefits without going out to look for work.” PeopleKnowsNeedsLooksHardEnoughWholeOrderPayHard WorkTaxesBenefitsLateAbsolutesBillionsGet UpWelfarePoundsFundGoing OutBureaucracyOutrageUp Early Author:George Osborne
“Whether [people] run their own business, work for a business, go out there, pay their taxes and see the money wasted, fed up with the money going to the next door neighbor sitting permanently on out of work benefits. There needs to be a coalition of change.” PeopleNeedsRunningNextPayDoorsTaxesBenefitsSittingNeighborFedsCoalitionsOwn BusinessFed UpNext Door NeighborsMoney Wasted Author:George Osborne
“We have to band together, but the thing in America is that people are terrified of losing their jobs... Maybe California needs to secede. The only thing that'll make any difference is the money... Tax dollars and losing that amount of money. It's one of the most economically powerful states, isn't it? That's where it hurts.” PeopleNeedsStatesTogetherJobsAmericaDifferencesHurtPowerfulAmountBandTaxesLosingDollarsCaliforniaTerrifiedIt HurtsTax Dollars Author:Cate Blanchett