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Gallup: Fewer Americans see their taxes as fair

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Betsi Fores The Daily Caller News Foundation
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This Tax Day, most Americans see the income taxes they pay as fair. However, the number is shrinking compared to the year before.

According to an annual survey by Gallup, when asked if they “regarded the income taxes they will have to pay this year as fair?” the number of Americans that agreed decreased four percentage points from last year to 55 percent.

“Although a majority of Americans still believe the income taxes they pay are fair, the 55 percent who say so is the lowest Gallup has measured since 2001, before the first of two rounds of federal income tax cuts went into effect,” Gallup writes.

The highest approval for income tax fairness in recent years was in 2003 after President Bush signed in his new tax cuts. At the time, 64 percent of Americans felt the income taxes they paid were fair.

Tax sentiment is very much divided along partisan lines. Some two-thirds of self-described Democrats view their income taxes as fair. Only 49 percent of Republicans say the income they fork over to the taxman is good and just. Similarly, 70 percent of liberals describe their taxes as fair, while only 45 percent of conservatives do.

“The gaps by party and ideology have expanded modestly since President Barack Obama took office. In 2008, the last full year of the Bush administration, 67 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of Republicans said their taxes were fair, a gap of 12 percentage points, compared with 17 points today,” Gallup notes.

About half of Americans think their income taxes are too high. Meanwhile, only 2 percent of Americans feel that they pay too little in taxes.

“Americans are also more likely this year (64%) than last year (53%) to believe that their taxes will be ‘changed so that they are higher’ during the next 12 months,” says Gallup.

Gallup notes that, as a rule, a majority of Americans expects taxes to be increased.

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