“Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society” is the grand phrase chiseled into the stone façade of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) headquarters in Washington D.C. It’s derived from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous pronouncement in a 1927 dissenting opinion and a personal comment he made among friends when he reportedly said: “I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.”[1] Holmes’s remarks and the IRS epigraph are intended to remind Americans that taxes are not an arbitrary and capricious punishment but rather a necessary and productive investment in the many public Read more