How Americans feel about Tax Day
By Tom Bevan
Real Clear Wire
Tax Day was April 15, the day of reckoning between the Internal Revenue Service and millions of (procrastinating) taxpayers. Two recent surveys give us a sense of how Americans view their annual obligation to pay Uncle Sam.
According to a Gallup poll conducted last week, 59% of those surveyed consider the amount of federal income tax they have to pay is “too high.” That number has been stable over the last three years, but represents a significant 13-point jump from Gallup’s reading in April of 2020. Meanwhile, 37% of us told Gallup we believe the amount of federal income tax we pay is “about right.”
As with nearly everything these days, there are partisan differences: Republicans have, for years, felt much more strongly than Democrats that their income taxes are too high, although significantly less so during the last three years of Donald Trump’s first term. That pattern appears to have begun repeating itself since Trump won a second term: The number of Republicans who say their taxes are too high dropped by 11 percentage points over the last 12 months, from 71% to 60%. Conversely, the number of Democrats who feel they are paying too much in taxes is 49%, up by 10 points in the last year since Trump began his second term.
In other words, when asked about how happy they are to pay their taxes, a certain percentage of voters hear the word “who” implicit in the question instead of “how much?” – as in, “Who is going to spend this money?”
That’s why independents might be a better barometer on this topic. And the jury is in: Nearly two-thirds of independents say the federal income tax they pay is too high – the largest share ever recorded by Gallup in 25 years of asking the question.
Meanwhile, a new Pew Research poll shows that large majorities of Democrats are frustrated with the current tax system. Eight in 10 Democrats are “bothered a lot” by the feeling that some wealthy people and some corporations “don’t pay their fair share” of taxes. Among Republicans, only 41% and 42% feel the same way, respectively.
And yet Pew also records that 56% of Democrats say they pay “more than their fair share” of taxes – a record high and 15 points higher than just five years ago. Sixty-six percent of Republicans feel the same – also a high-water mark. Among those who identify as “upper income,” 79% of Republicans say they pay “more than their fair share,” as do 57% of upper income Democrats.
Finally, there is a slim bipartisan majority (52% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans) who say they are “bothered a lot” by the “complexity of the tax system.”
Tom Bevan is the co-founder and president of RealClearPolitics and the co-author of "Election 2012: A Time for Choosing." Email: tom@realclearpolitics.com, Twitter: @TomBevanRCP