Taxation Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follow that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression.

— Thomas Jefferson

Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects…

— Thomas Jefferson

Taxation is, in fact, the most difficult function of government and that against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory.

— Thomas Jefferson

The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.

— Thomas Jefferson

Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.

— Thomas Jefferson

Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on…

— Thomas Jefferson

Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.

— Thomas Jefferson

It must be observed that our revenues are raised almost wholly on imported goods.

— Thomas Jefferson

Many of the opposition [to the new Federal Constitution] wish to take from Congress the power of internal taxation. Calculation has convinced…

— Thomas Jefferson

Still less, let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on…

— Thomas Jefferson

The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be…

— Thomas Jefferson

Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reeactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public…

— Thomas Jefferson

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and…

— Thomas Jefferson

... legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property... Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt…

— Thomas Jefferson

To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, 'to lay taxes for the…

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson