A small sample of some of the items at Tax Quotes.

"AGENTS...Our tax system is based on voluntary assessment and voluntary compliance...the material contained in this handbook is confidential in character. It must not under any circumstances be made available to persons outside the service."

-- Mr. Mortimer Caplan, IRS Commissioner

"The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government."

-- Senator Barry M. Goldwater

"It's a game. We [tax lawyers] teach the rich how to play it so they can stay rich-- and the IRS keeps changing the rules so we can keep getting rich teaching them."

-- John Grisham

"The trick is to stop thinking of it as "your" money."

-- IRS Auditor

"This year is not much different from other years. The Ways and Means Committee worked up its draft of the 1997 tax bill in secret and revealed it on June 9 and 10. The bill passed the House less than a month later. No hearings were held on the actual bill. It was funny (if that is the proper word) to watch the chief of staff of the Joint Tax Committee on June 12 describe the bill to the members. He was speaking at a rapid pace, so fast that most of the members could not possibly have understood him. I, as a tax expert, had a very tough time in following his rapid explanation. He answered questions very narrowly, and there was a vote. A few good lobbyists got advanced word and were able to change a few things, but most of us only watched in awe, or disbelief, that this was the way to make a law.

-- Sheldon S. Cohen

"The relative stability of profits after taxes is evidence that the corporation profits tax is in effect almost entirely shifted; the government simply uses the corporation as a tax collector."

-- K.E. Boulding

"There is hardly an American citizen above the poverty level whose tax conscience is so completely clear that he isn't scared of being audited."

-- "Diogenes" (nom de plume of an IRS agent)