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  What it means

  What Christ does not take, the taxman will grab — death and taxes are the two inescapable certainties of life.

  English equivalent

  Nothing is certain but death and taxes.

  Vocabulary

  • brać — to take
  • Chrystus — Christ (here: death)
  • fiskus — the treasury, the taxman, the state
  • porwać — to snatch, to grab

  Grammar note

  Genitive of negation: 'czego nie bierze' — the object is in genitive because the verb is negated.

  Cultural context

  A darkly humorous proverb reflecting the Polish experience of both mortality and heavy taxation.

  Intermediate

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