THE STUDY JANUARY 17, 2012
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A new survey shows that the vast majority of millionaires agree with Warren Buffett’s calls for the very wealthy to pay more in taxes. There’s just one catch: Most of the survey respondents who sided with Buffett don’t see themselves as part of that very wealthy group. It’s hardly surprising to find support for the idea of somebody else ponying up more in taxes, but the survey does raise an interesting question: Do Americans see their tax burden as fair?
Survey data from Gallup indicates that the country is about evenly split on the question. In a 2011 poll, 50 percent of Americans said their federal income taxes were too high, but 43 percent said they were about right, and 4 percent said they were too low. Interestingly, Gallup notes, 57 percent said they paid a fair amount, a greater proportion than said they pay the right amount—“suggesting more people dislike what they pay than feel it is unjust.” 59 percent of all respondents said that upper-income people pay too little, but upper-income people were the most likely to feel unfairly burdened. Of those respondents with incomes of $250,000 or more, fully two-thirds said their taxes were “too high.” Only around half of the respondents in the other income groups said the same thing about their own tax burden.
3 comments
Taxes. Income taxes. Whatever. You (and the pollsters) need to get their taxes straight. Of course high income folks think their "income taxes" are too high, because income taxes are what high income folks pay. And of course everybody else thinks their "taxes" (i.e., payroll taxes) are too high, because payroll taxes are what they pay. Do pollsters spend a semester in propaganda school before formulating their questions?
- rayward
January 17, 2012 at 5:32pm
i live and work in Mexico and I can honestly say I have ZERO problems with the rate I pay, in fact I don't pay it any heed. The reason is I am truly satisfied with what my taxes pay out. I get 100% coverage on my health care (though I rarely have had cause to use it, thank God) And I am paid on the top end of the income scale around here. lord knows how I will feel when I move back to the states.
- blackton
January 18, 2012 at 10:45am
How they FEEL about their taxes is almost completely unimportant. If the Federal Budget is running a trillion dollar deficit, and tax rates are down at 15% for Capital Gains, then clearly taxes are too low. Especially for people who get a lot of their income from Capital Gains. If their taxes were at 60%, and we still had a deficit of a trillion dollars, then the case could be made that we're spending way too much. But since that's not the case, how they FEEL about it is unimportant -- taxes are too low, have been too low since Bush-II made them that way, and need to be restored to the Clinton era rates. People FELT they were too high then too, but we had a MUCH better economy and a balanced budget. THAT is the important thing.
- AllanL5
January 18, 2012 at 4:22pm