♦ A tough old cowboy from south Texas counseled his grandson that if he wanted to live a long life, the secret was to sprinkle a pinch of gunpowder on his oatmeal every morning.

The grandson followed this advice religiously until the day he died at age 103.

He left behind 14 children, 30 grandchildren, 45 great-grandchildren, 24 great-great-grandchildren, and a 15-foot hole where the crematorium used to be. Courtesy of Michael Lied

♦  “The tax code, once you get to know it, embodies all the essence of [human] life: greed, politics, power, goodness, charity”.  David Wallace via NY Times Courtesy of Jessica Tovrov

♦  Loud dramatic music like you’d hear on TV or at the movies — “DUN-DUN-DUN” — echoes in my head as I pull a letter from our mailbox; it’s from the Internal Revenue Service. I don’t know about you but when Uncle Sam’s money collectors drop a line in the middle of summer instead of around tax time I open the thing right up.  I mean, I don’t mind paying taxes. The USA is a big ol’ country and my hard-earned money helps with such groovy things as superhighways, thermonuclear devices to protect us from rogue nations and anti-revolution insurance. But I know I paid my taxes that year. Uncle Sam’s records said I’d only paid a few hundred dollars but my records showed that I’d paid a few thousand. Somewhere along the way someone, and it wasn’t me, left off a digit. Grant McGee 8-13-10

♦  “A tax shelter is a dumb transaction done by smart people that will put my kids through college.” Chuck Rettig, tax controversy lawyer, at a 2005 tax conference.

♦  America is the land of opportunity. Everybody can become a taxpayer.