"Our federal tax system is, in short, utterly impossible, utterly unjust and completely counterproductive [it] reeks with injustice and is fundamentally un-American... it has earned a rebellion and it's time we rebelled"

President Ronald Reagan, May 1983, Williamsburg, VA.

"We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him. . . . But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure."

--Ronald Reagan

"Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector's share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp. "

--Ronald Reagan

"The taxpayer; that´s someone who works for the federal government, but doesn´t have to take a civil service examination"

--Ronald Reagan

"Are you entitled to the fruits of your labor or does government have some presumptive right to spend and spend and spend?"

--Ronald Reagan

"Government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always finds a need for the money it gets."

--Ronald Reagan

"I just wanted to speak to you about something from the Internal Revenue Code. It is the last sentence of section 509A of the code and it reads: 'For purposes of paragraph 3, an organization described in paragraph 2 shall be deemed to include an organization described in section 501C-4, 5, or 6, which would be described in paragraph 2 if it were an organization described in section 501C-3.' And that's just one sentence out of those fifty-seven feet of books."

--Ronald Reagan

Even Albert Einstein reportedly needed help on his 1040 form.

--Ronald Wilson Reagan

History shows that when the taxes of a nation approach about 20% of the people's income, there begins to be a lack of respect for government. . . . When it reaches 25%, there comes an increase in lawlessness.

--Ronald Wilson Reagan

I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers. Go ahead -- make my day.

--Ronald Wilson Reagan

The current tax code is a daily mugging.

--Ronald Wilson Reagan

The taxpayer -- that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take a civil service exam.

--Ronald Wilson Reagan

Some others:

"It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder."

--Frederic Bastiat

"A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man´s business; the eye of the federal inspector will be in every man´s counting house.... The law will of necessity have inquisical features, it will provide penalties, it will create complicated machinery. Under it, men will be hauled into courts distant from their homes. Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will constantly menace the taxpayer. An army of federal inspectors, spies, and detectives will descend upon the state."

--Richard E. Byrd, Virginia House Speaker, 1910, predicting the consequences of a federal income tax

"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation."

--Vladimir I. Lenin

"The power to tax involves the power to destroy."

--John Marshall