It’s income tax time again, time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil, and….. For last minute Indian tax payers, the day of truth, 31st July, is just around the corner. Albert Einstein, the great physicist said: “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” To help you get through these taxing times  we have tried to look at tax in a lighter vein, in an attempt to put a smile back on your face.  As they say in Bangalore, “Simple Enjoy Maadi”(maadi=>do/karo).

“In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” –Benjamin Franklin

Quotes on Tax

Some quotes on tax

• Man is not like other animals in the ways that are really significant:  animals have instincts, we have taxes.  ~Erving Goffman
• Today, it takes more brains and effort to make out the income-tax form than it does to make the income.  ~Alfred E. Neuman
• A person doesn’t know how much he has to be thankful for until he has to pay taxes on it.  ~Author Unknown
• Death and taxes may be inevitable, but they shouldn’t be related.  ~J.C. Watts, Jr.
• The best things in life are free, but sooner or later the government will find a way to tax them.  ~Author Unknown
• The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:  If it moves, tax it.  If it keeps moving, regulate it.  And if it stops moving, subsidize it.  ~Ronald Reagan
• There’s nothing wrong with the younger generation that becoming taxpayers won’t cure.  ~Dan Bennett
• A fine is a tax for doing something wrong.  A tax is a fine for doing something right.  Author Unknown
• “Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund.” — F. J. Raymond, humorist
• “People who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women.” — Unknown

Where does word Tax come from: Etymology of Tax

To Tax Means to Reach out and Touch Someone
the English word tax
derived from the English word taxen
derived from the Old French word taxer
derived from the Medieval Latin word taxare (value, assess the worth of; access a crime)
derived from the Latin word tangere (touch, strike; border on)
derived from the Proto-Indo-European root*tag (to touch)
The earliest known usage of tax in English dates from the 13th century.
Ref:myetymology.com

America was founded because of Tax

On a serious note

The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of British tea into the harbour.

Christopher Columbus on trying to discover India discovered America.  He made four voyages first in 1492. He was followed by European colonists. By 1607 Britishers had the largest settlement in  America. By the 1770s the Thirteen Colonies were prosperous.

In the 1760s, Britain was deep in debt, so the British Parliament imposed a series of taxes on American colonists to help pay those debts. British heavily taxed the American colonists with such legislation as the Stamp Act of 1765 (which added taxes to newspapers, permits, playing cards, and legal documents) and the Townsend Act of 1767 (which added taxes to paper, paint, and tea).

In 1773 Boston Tea Party in Colonial America was starting of America’s revolution.  A group of colonists, dressed as Native Americans, boarded three English ships moored in Boston Harbor. These colonists then spent hours smashing the ships’ cargo, wooden chests filled with tea and then throwing the damaged boxes over the side of the ships. The colonists threw the tea over the side of the ships to protest what they saw as the very unfair practice of “taxation without representation.”   Did you know? It took nearly three hours for more than 100 colonists to empty the tea into Boston Harbor. The chests held more than 90,000 lbs. (45 tons) of tea, which would cost nearly $1,000,000 dollars today.

British government’s threat to American self-government led to war in 1775 and the Declaration of Independence in 1776. With the help of France, the Patriots won the American Revolution. In 1789 the Constitution became the basis for the United States federal government, with war hero George Washington as the first president. Ref

Boston Tea Party

Video on the Boston Tea Party and American Revolution

This 4-minute video by History channel talks about the Tea Act of 1773.

Infographic on Taxes

Quotes, Cartoons, Revolutions due to Taxes

For more tax cartoons:
www.glasbergen.com
mchumor.com
martybucella.com
danscartoons.com