It seems that the famous quote attributed to Mark Twain, “The only two certainties in life are death and taxes,” should actually be attributed to Ben Franklin. 

Nicole Ostrow, in her Bloomberg.com article, “Death, Taxes Collide as Fatal Crashes Mount on Filing Day,” reports on a study by Donald Redelmeier and Christopher Yarnell, appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association where they find evidence of a strong connection between death and taxes.  What they find is that there are about 6% more deadly crashes on tax deadlines than one week before and one week after on that same day of the week.  They attribute this to increased stress from filing taxes.

Not be disappointed in Twain for failing to produce quotable quotes on about every subject, Twain did leave us with this one about taxes and the taxman: “The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.”  

-MC