Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Taxes

• To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Men, Ideas

• The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson

  Kings, Ignorance, School

  Thomas Jefferson (1900). “The Life and Writings of ...”

• The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Doors, Land, Office

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

• Legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property... Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Mean, Law

  Thomas Jefferson's letter to James Madison, founders.archives.gov. October 28, 1785.

• I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wine, Thinking, Errors

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.100, Cosimo, Inc.

• Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reeactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Wish, Taxation

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.195

• To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, 'to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.' For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union.

  Thomas Jefferson

  United States, Purpose, Taxation

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.216, Penguin

• A lottery is a salutary instrument and a tax... laid on the willing only, that is to say, on those who can risk the price of a ticket without sensible injury, for the possibility of a higher prize.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Gambling, Risk, Tickets

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.440

• I... [proposed] three distinct grades of education, reaching all classes. 1. Elementary schools for all children generally, rich and poor. 2. Colleges for a middle degree of instruction, calculated for the common purposes of life and such as should be desirable for all who were in easy circumstances. And 3d. an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences generally and in their highest degree... The expenses of [the elementary] schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his general tax-rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Children, Teaching, School

• It is a wise rule and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its faculties, "never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the interest annually, and the principal within a given term; and to consider that tax as pledged to the creditors on the public faith."

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wise, Government, Dollars

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States”, p.200

• The value of science to a republican people, the security it gives to liberty by enlightening the minds of its citizens, the protection it affords against foreign power, the virtue it inculcates, the just emulation of the distinction it confers on nations foremost in it; in short, its identification with power, morals, order and happiness (which merits to it premiums of encouragement rather than repressive taxes), are considerations [that should] always [be] present and [bear] with their just weight.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Encouragement, Order, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1990). “Public and private papers”, Vintage Books

• Every male citizen of the commonwealth, liable to taxes or to militia duty in any county, shall have a right to vote for representatives for that county to the legislature.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Voting, Males, Citizens

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1793-1798”, p.159, Cosimo, Inc.

• I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes, and for that reason solely approve of the greater house being chosen by the people directly.

  Thomas Jefferson

  People, House, Reason

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.337, Penguin

• Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Taxation, May, Individual

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia II, Correspondence 1782-1786”, p.382, Cosimo, Inc.

• The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what merchant, what laborer ever sees a tax gatherer of the United States?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Pride, Luxury, Comfort

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