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The U.S. tax code was written by A students. Every April 15, we have to pay somebody who got an A in accounting to keep ourselves from being sent to jail.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote humorously critiques the complexity of the tax code and those who understand it.

P.J. O'Rourke uses humor to highlight the absurdity of the U.S. tax system, suggesting it is overly complicated and benefits those who excel in the subject, leaving the average person in a position of dependency and confusion. It reflects a sentiment of frustration with bureaucracy and the necessity of relying on experts to navigate a system that can lead to severe consequences if not properly managed.

Themes

TaxHumorBureaucracyAccountingComplexity

In practice

Example use cases

During a financial literacy seminar to emphasize the importance of understanding taxes.

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Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
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Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
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Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
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I spend my days kneeling in the muck of language, feeling around for gooey verbs, nouns, and modifiers that I can squash together to make a blob of a sentence that bears some likeness to reason and sense.
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Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
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The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around.
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