Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Wise Words on Taxes and Money

Parsley Sage Rosemary & Ginsburg llp
“always a reasonable result for a reasonable fee, always”
MEMORANDUM

To:
All Partners
From:
Mike Marget
Date:
January 31, 2012
Re:
Your 2011 K-1s needed for your personal tax return

Your K-1s for 2011 should be distributed by the end of the day.  Should you have any questions concerning the numbers reported on your K-1, do not hesitate to contact me.

In the meantime, the following are some inspirational thoughts on the subject of taxation and money:

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”  Albert Einstein

“Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized country.”  Oliver Wendell Holmes

“The only thing that hurts more than paying an income tax is not having to pay an income tax.”  Lord Thomas R. Dewar

“Unquestionably, there is progress.  The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.”  H. L. Mencken

“Of life’s two certainties, taxes is the only one for which you can obtain an automatic extension.”  Anonymous

“Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.”  Herman Wouk

“The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward.”  John Maynard Keynes

“The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.”  Will Rogers

“The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return.  It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.”  Arthur C. Clarke

“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.”  B. Franklin

“On my income tax 1040 it says ‘Check this box if you are blind.’  I wanted to put a check mark about three inches away.”  Tom Lehrer

“There’s always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little – and it’s always somebody else.”  Cullen Hightower

“Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund.”  F. J. Raymond

“Death and taxes and childbirth!  There’s never a convenient time for any of them!”  Margaret Mitchell

“Of all debts, men are least willing to pay taxes.  What a satire is this on government!” 
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Another difference between death and taxes is that death is occasionally painless.”  Anonymous

“If those [taxes] laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might be more easily discharge the, but we have many others….  We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly.”  B. Franklin

“Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game.  You want us to pay income taxes, too?”  Bill Veeck, former owner of the Chicago White Sox

“I’m proud to be paying taxes in the United States.  The only thing is I could be just as proud for half the money.”  Arthur Godfrey

“I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes.  I hope they do get ‘em lowered enough so people can afford to pay ‘me.”  Will Rogers

“It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them.”
Tiberius Caesar

“The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison cell.”
Denis Healey

“Only little people pay taxes.”  Leona Helmsley

“The taxpayer.  That’s someone who works for the federal government, but doesn’t have to take a civil service examination.”  Ronald Reagan

“I make a fortune from criticizing the policy of the government, and then hand it over to government in taxes to keep it going.  George Bernard Shaw

“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the entire world should be taxed.”  St. Luke 2:1

“Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed.  It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.”  Oscar Wilde

“He who builds a better mousetrap these days runs into material shortages, patent-infringement suits, work stoppages, collusive bidding, discount discrimination and taxes.”  H.E. Martz

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gives it to.”
Dorothy Parker

“I’m living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.” 
e.e. cummings

“If you count your money, you don’t have billions.”  J. Paul Getty

“The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free information hot lines staffed by IRS employees whose idea of a dynamic tax tip is that you should print neatly.  If you ask them a real tax question, such as how you can heat, they’re worthless.  So, for guidance, you want to look to big business.  Big business never pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes….”  Dave Barry

“I owe the government $3,400 in taxes.  So I sent them two hammers and a toilet seat.”
Michael McShane

“The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it’s just sort of a tired feeling.”  Paula Poundstone

“Civil servants and priests, soldiers and ballet-dances, 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.”  Karl Marx

“The Florida Lottery:  A tax on people who are bad at math.”  Anonymous

“There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist – the taxidermist leaves the hide.”  Mortimer Caplan

“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.”  Edmund Burke

“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.”
John Kenneth Galbraith

"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.”
Jean Baptiste Colbert, mister of finance to Louis XIV

“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,
Don’t ask me what I want it for
If you don’t want to pay some more
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the tax man”
            The Beatles, Taxman