Dave Barry Quotes About Taxes

Quotes about: Taxes

• It's income tax time again, Americans: time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil, and stab yourself in the aorta

  Dave Barry

  Income, Irs, Taxation

• The question is: What can we, as citizens, do to reform our tax system? As you know, under our three-branch system of government, the tax laws are created by: Satan. But he works through the Congress, so that's where we must focus our efforts.

  Dave Barry

  Government, Law, Focus

• Why can't Americans do their own taxes? Because the federal Tax Code is out of control, that's why. It's gigantic and insanely complex, and it gets worse all the time. Nobody has ever read the whole thing. IRS workers are afraid to go into the same ROOM with it.

  Dave Barry

  Irs, Rooms, Taxes

• The average tax payer is not a big voluntary supporter of the arts. The only art that the average taxpayer buys voluntarily either has a picture of Bart Simpson on it or little suction cups on its feet so you can stick it onto a car window.

  Dave Barry

  Art, Average, Feet

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry Talks Back”, p.146, Crown Archetype

• Of course, the truth is that the congresspersons are too busy raising campaign money to read the laws they pass. The laws are written by staff tax nerds who can put pretty much any wording they want in there. I bet that if you actually read the entire vastness of the US tax code, you'd find at least one sex scene. ("Yes, yes, YES!" moaned Vanessa as Lance, his taut body moist with moisture, again and again depreciated her adjusted gross rate of annualized fiscal debenture...)

  Dave Barry

  Sex, Law, Nerd

• Most of the presidential candidates' economic packages involve 'tax breaks,' which is when the government, amid great fanfare, generously decides not to take quite so much of your income. In other words, these candidates are trying to buy your votes with your own money.

  Dave Barry

  Government, Presidential, Trying

  "The Bucks Drop Here". Washington Post Magazine, February 9, 1992.

• Print neatly. That's the kind of advice that the IRS considers a "dynamite" tax tip. If you ask them a real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless.

  Dave Barry

  Real, Advice, Irs

• And to you taxpayers out there, let me say this: Make sure you file your tax return on time! And remember that, even though income taxes can be a 'pain in the neck,' the folks at the IRS are regular people just like you, except that they can destroy your life

  Dave Barry

  Pain, People, Return

  Dave Barry (2003). “Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, but Some Actual Journalism”, p.114, Crown Archetype

• 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 dynamite tax tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them a real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless. 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

  Money, Business, Real

• The Democrats believe that if God did not want them to raise taxes, He would not have created the Internal Revenue Service.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Humorous, Party

  "Dave Barry's Bad Habits". Book by Dave Barry, September 15, 1993.

• It is an inconvenience, being located in a city where taxes are ludicrously high, where you pay twice your annual income to rent an apartment that could easily be carried on a commercial airline flight.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, New York, Humorous

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry's Greatest Hits”, p.64, Ballantine Books

• I regularly read Internet user groups filled with messages from people trying to solve software incompatibility problems that, in terms of complexity, make the U.S. Tax Code look like Dr. Seuss.

  Dave Barry

  Reading, People, Trying

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry in Cyberspace”, p.50, Ballantine Books

• All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains?

  Dave Barry

  Wall, Humorous, Rain

• Let's talk about how to fill out your 1984 tax return. Here's an often overlooked accounting technique that can save you thousands of dollars: For several days before you put it in the mail, carry your tax return around under your armpit. No IRS agent is going to want to spend hours poring over a sweat-stained document. So even if you owe money, you can put in for an enormous refund and the agent will probably give it to you, just to avoid an audit. What does he care? It's not his money.

  Dave Barry

  Humorous, Sweat, Giving

• I'm a humorist. A guy like Paul Simon just makes my life so much simpler. When I was there, he had a hearing against hate. Steven Spielberg came and testified against hate. Paul Simon said hate was bad. Orrin Hatch was there, and he was against hate too. Everyone was opposed to hate. Is this really a wonderful way to spend our tax dollars, to have these men drone away about how against hate they are?

  Dave Barry

  Hate, Men, Guy

  "'All I Think Is That It's Stupid': An Interview with Dave Barry". Interview with Glenn Garvin, reason.com. December, 1994.

• [American tax laws] are constantly changing as our elected representatives seek new ways to ensure that whatever tax advice we receive is incorrect.

  Dave Barry

  Law, Advice, Way

• Every year I write a tax advice column and I used to always make fun of that. One year, one of my favorite IRS commissioners, I think his name was Roscoe somebody, wrote that one of the most often-asked questions by taxpayers was, "How can I contribute more?" Well, I tell ya, ol' Roscoe's really been doing situps under parked cars again. I've heard a lot of people ask a lot of questions about taxes, but I never heard anybody say, "How can I, the ordinary person, send more money for no reason?"

  Dave Barry

  Fun, Writing, Thinking

  "All I Think Is That It's Stupid". Interview with Glenn Garvin, reason.com. December, 1994.

• Are we ever going to have a federal tax system that regular people can understand?

  Dave Barry

  People, Taxes, Tax System

  Dave Barry (2011). “Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down”, p.89, Ballantine Books

• This was years ago, I think during the early [Ronald] Reagan years. I came up with a plan that everybody just pay $8.95 in taxes. Cheating would be allowed. But the incentive to cheat wouldn't be nearly as great if you only had to pay the $8.95. There were a few people who would have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars under this plan. I think it was Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, the guys who do the quiz shows. But almost everybody else would be off really cheap.

  Dave Barry

  Cheating, Thinking, Years

• Congress shall also create a tax code weighing more than the combined poundage of the largest member of the House and the largest member of the Senate, plus a standard musk ox.

  Dave Barry

  House, Musk, Congress

  Dave Barry (2011). “Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway”, p.34, Ballantine Books

• When I write my annual tax column, some ex-IRS agent will complain, "There you go IRS bashing again." They're always saying that they're just doing their job. Someone I know once said, "You could get another job."

  Dave Barry

  Jobs, Writing, Irs

  ""All I Think Is That It's Stupid": An Interview with Dave Barry". Interview with Glenn Garvin, reason.com. December, 1994.

• I'm not the only taxpayer who has no idea what he's sending to the IRS. This year, only 28 percent of all Americans will prepare their own tax returns, according to a voice in my head that invents accurate-sounding statistics.

  Dave Barry

  Years, Ideas, Voice

• Here's my proposal, which is based on the TV show Survivor: We put the entire Congress on an island. All the food on this island is locked inside a vault, which can be opened only by an ordinary American taxpayer named Bob. Every day, the congresspersons are given a section of the Tax Code, which they must rewrite so that Bob can understand it. If he can, he lets them eat that day; if he can't, he doesn't.

  Dave Barry

  Islands, Tv Shows, Ordinary

• 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

  Funny, Business, Humor

  "Your Guide to Self-Directed". Book by Daniel Cordoba. p. 197, September 19, 2008.

• If Congress were to pass a 'flat' tax, you'd simply pay a fixed percentage of your income, and you wouldn't have to fill out any complicated forms, and there would be no loopholes for politically connected groups, and normal people would actually understand the tax laws, and giant talking broccoli stalks would come around and mow your lawn for free, because Congress is NOT going to pass a flat tax, you pathetic fool.

  Dave Barry

  Talking, Law, People

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