Thomas Piketty Quotes

We demand a graduated income tax.

… [state] taxation should be in proportion to wealth …

I think there's a lot to be said for changing the balance of what we tax: wealth versus work.

People like me, whose income largely comes from dividends, should pay more taxes.

I think the rich should pay more in taxes - I agree with that 100 percent - but everybody should feel the pain a little bit.

I want to reform the tax code so that it's simple, fair, and asks the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000 - the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president; the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest surplus in history, and a lot of millionaires to boot.

I've advocated a proportional tax system. You make $10 billion, you pay a billion. You make $10, you pay one. And everybody gets treated the same way.

The progressive feature of the income tax is the most dangerous element of democracy.

I’m not looking for opportunity to pay more taxes. But I do support progressive tax structure. If society has been exceptionally good to you, then it’s incumbent on you to make a larger contribution to the welfare of society.

The income tax is the fairest, the most equitable system of taxation that has yet been devised.

Exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and ... tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.

There should be a 100% income tax in incomes above the amount needed to supply all the comforts and true refinements of life.

Very high taxes on the very rich—that was invented in the United States.

I believe in a progressive tax structure that fairly distributes the costs of government in a way that those of us fortunate to have more, carry more of the burden.

Fairness dictates that the highest income people should pay the greatest share of taxes, and they do.

One of the things I have been preaching around the world is collecting taxes in an equitable manner, especially from the elites.

Here's the problem: the so-called 'millionaire surtax' is a permanent tax to pay for a temporary benefit.

I think we should have basically the same tax policy that Germany, Japan, the U.K., everybody else has, which is a tax rate in the mid-20s and no loopholes. Zero. The U.S. has the most antiquated tax system. And that means some people are going to pay more taxes, and some people are going to pay less.

The way to connect with voters on the plan is to simply give the facts. Fifty per cent of taxpayers pay 97 per cent of the taxes. By most people's standards, that's already fair. The President is playing the class warfare card because he knows that a lot of people may never hear that particular fact. But it's a fact.

The bottom line is that the death tax is a tax on the economy because it slows economic growth.

Using taxes to punish the rich, in reality, punishes everyone because we are all interconnected. High taxes and excessive regulation and massive debt are not working.

'Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars.' Guess what? Yes, we do in one regard: We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn't have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super-wealthy. That's not a tax raise. That's called fairness where I come from.

Having won re-election convincingly and against the economic odds, President Obama quickly made good on his promise of maintaining taxes as they are for the middle class while raising them on the wealthiest Americans.

The problem with wanting the tax code to be 'simpler, fairer,' and 'pro-growth' is that it's impossible to achieve all three at the same time.

Stupider than France is not where we want to be on tax policy.