Most voters think Trump should be paying more in taxes: poll

A large majority of people think that President Trump should be paying more in taxes, according to a survey from the Financial Times and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

Seventy-two percent of likely voters nationwide said that they think Trump should be paying more, while 26 percent said he’s paying the right amount and 2 percent said he should be paying less. More than 90 percent of Democrats said they think Trump should be paying more, while 77 percent of independents and 47 percent of Republicans said the same.

The survey was conducted after The New York Times reported last month that the president has paid little-to-no federal income taxes in recent years, including paying $750 during both 2016 and 2017. Trump in 2016 became the first major party presidential nominee in decades not to make any of their tax returns public.

Sixty-one percent of voters said they think Trump is unfairly taking advantage of the U.S. tax system, while 39 percent said they think he is fairly following the rules of the tax system.

Voters were less likely to say they think Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden should be paying more in taxes. About half of likely voters nationwide said they think the former vice president should be paying more, and about half said he’s paying the right amount. About one-third of Democrats, 64 percent of independents and 62 percent of Republicans said Biden should be paying more.

Biden released his 2019 federal tax return in September, showing that he and his wife had an effective tax rate of about 30 percent.

The vast majority of respondents said they think large corporations and higher-income people should be paying more in taxes, while most voters said they think middle-class people are paying the right amount of taxes and low-income people should be paying less.

About half of respondents said they think people like them are paying the right amount of taxes and about half said they think people like them should be paying less. A majority of voters making more than $100,000 said they think they’re paying the correct amount, while most voters earning under $50,000 said they think they should be paying less.

Thirty-two percent of nationwide respondents said they have become financially better off since Trump has become president, which ties a 12-month low in the Financial Times and Peterson Foundation’s surveys. Thirty-two percent said they are financially worse off, which is the second lowest percentage in the past year, the Peterson Foundation said.

The Financial Times-Peter G. Peterson Foundation U.S. Economic Monitor surveyed 1,000 voters in nationwide from Oct. 8 to Oct. 11. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.