Skip to Content
IRS Whistleblowers, click here to contact the Ways & Means Committee about waste, fraud, and abuse.

STUDY: Americans Agree Post-Pandemic Tax Hikes Are a Bad Idea

Americans across political spectrum all agree: now is not the time to be raising taxes
May 6, 2021 — Blog    — Press Releases    — Select Revenue Measures   

With COVID on the run and businesses looking to reopen and rehire, the American people aren’t interested in Democrats’ job-killing tax hikes right now, according to a recent poll conducted by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR).

And though bipartisan consensus is tough to come by in Washington, D.C., the poll also showed that the vast majority of Americans agree on lowering – not raising – taxes for workers and families.

Unfortunately, every American will shoulder Democrats’ recovery-sabotaging and job-killing tax hikes.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Here’s what the poll shows:

  • Taxes are at the front of mind for voters right now. Just below half say that position on taxes is among the most important thing that they look for when deciding which candidate to support, and this is true of Democrats, Republicans and Independents.
  • Raising taxes is very unpopular right now. Republicans, Democrats and Independents agree that the tail-end of a pandemic is not the time to raise taxes.
  • Democrats and Republicans can agree on lowering the tax rate for individuals and families. 81% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats support lowering the tax rate for most income brackets. However, when it comes to lowering the corporate tax rate, Republican support is 18 percentage points higher.
  • Over half of voters believe that the amount they pay in taxes (53%) and the amount paid in this country (57%) is too high. But when asked about how the amount they pay compares to what they get in return from the government, slightly fewer (52%) say that the amount they receive is too little.
  • The more that voters know about the US tax code, the more likely they are to believe that it is too complicated. A majority (71%) of high knowledge voters believe that the tax code is too complicated, compared to 59% of low knowledge voters. Just above one-third (33%) of low knowledge voters believe that the tax code is “about the right level of complexity” compared to just 23% of high knowledge voters.
  • Support for raising taxes on people making over $1M is high (64%) and driven by Democrats (74%) and Independents (63%). A majority of Democrats and Independents also support raising taxes on large corporations (73% Dems, 59% Inds) and people making over $400k (64% Dems, 52% Inds), compared with only 45% and 46% of Republicans who support raising taxes on each of these groups, respectively.

CLICK HERE to read the full report.