Theodoric the Great Quotes
We hear with sorrow, by the report of the Provincial judges, that you the Fathers of the State, who ought to set an example to your sons (the ordinary citizens), have been so remiss in the payment of taxes that on this first collection nothing, or next to nothing, has been brought in from any Senatorial house. Thus a crushing weight has fallen on the lower orders, who have had to make good your deficiencies and have been distraught by the violence of the tax gatherers …. Now then, oh Conscript Fathers, who owe as much duty to the Republic as we do, pay the taxes for which each of you is liable.
The letter was actually drafted and written by Cassiodorus, the King’s secretary. The Senators actually took the position that they had paid too much in the past and this was a form of overdue tax relief for the wealthiest segment of the population and the burden falling on the majority was reasonable and desirable. The George W. Bush Administration’s tax cuts for the wealthiest, was not a “totally unprecedented” act as can be seen by this example. The same logic held.
Theodoric, c. 445-526, Ostrogoth & Itallic King, Letter to the Roman Senate
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Trinh controlled North Vietnam while the Nguyen Lords controlled the South—the origin of the division of Vietnam. The Le Kings had little authority anywhere.
In this quotation Judge Hand argues that tax avoidance is not only legal but moral.
The Treasury Secretary had discovered a massive fraud between some whiskey distillers and some government officials whereby the government was defrauded of millions of dollars of tax revenue. One of the Federal officials Bristow wanted to indict was O. E. Babcock, the President’s personal secretary and advisor. Bristow marshaled the facts and sent a report to Grant who wrote the quoted material in the margin of the report and sent it back to Bristow. Despite Grant’s lack of personal involvement and his immediate willingness to prosecute his close friend and colleague, the stain of scandal spread to Grant and to this day is a part of any discussion of his presidency.
He turned out to be very wrong as there were a number of times in American history when there were tax rates in excess of 70 percent, and they were collected.
It was very common to have tax collectors take a percentage of their collections as a commission and to be able to appoint sub tax collectors who also took commissions. On top of that, most tax collectors underreported the amount that they collected and pocketed the difference. At the time, Spain was worse than most Christian nations.
Theodoric (or Theoderic) the Great (454 – 30 August 526), also called Theodoric the Amal, was king of the Ostrogoths (475–526), and ruler of the independent Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy between 493 and 526, regent of the Visigoths (511–526), and a patrician of the Eastern Roman Empire. As ruler of the combined Gothic realms, Theodoric controlled an empire stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Adriatic Sea.
