Georges Clemenceau, an early-twentieth-century French president, described France as “a very fertile country: you plant bureaucrats and taxes grow.” A few decades later the comedian Michel Coluche quipped that if there was a tax on stupidity, the state would pay for itself. And a modern writer, Frédéric Dard, remarked, “It’s when you are paying your taxes that you realize you can’t afford the salary you earn.”
