76% Favor Maximum Tax Payment of 20%
Nearly half of U.S. voters still think the average person in this country pays 30% or more of their income in taxes, and instead they believe overwhelmingly that the ceiling for those taxes should be 20% at the most.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 30%% of Likely U.S. Voters believe that the average American pays 30% of their income for federal, state and local taxes. That is a fairly good estimate. According to www.taxfoundation.org, Americans pay approximately 28% of their total income in taxes.
Fifteen percent (15%) overestimate how much the average American pays and believe the actual tax paid is 40% or more.
Three times as many, 47%, underestimate the tax burden and believe the average American pays 20% or less of their income in taxes. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on March 7-8, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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