42% Say U.S. Corporations Don’t Pay Enough in Taxes
Americans tend to think U.S. corporations aren't taxed enough, but most favor lowering the tax rates on corporations in exchange for limiting their deductions.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 42% of American Adults believe corporations pay too little tax, while 24% feel they pay too much. Seventeen percent (17%) say the level of corporate taxation is about right. Sixteen percent (16%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
With so-called corporate tax loopholes a likely target in upcoming budget negotiations, 59% think it is better to have lower corporate tax rates and very few deductions than to have higher tax rates and lots of deductions. Just 16% favor higher rates and lots of deductions, but one-in-four (25%) are not sure which is better.
Changes in the tax code are likely as Congress debates ways to cut the federal deficit, and 64% of Americans also prefer lower tax rates and very few deductions for individuals rather than higher rates and lots of deductions.
Seventy-nine percent (79%) of adults recognize, however, that when corporations pay more in taxes, they generally pass the costs along to their customers in the form of higher prices. Only eight percent (8%) don’t believe that’s true, while 13% are undecided.
Thirty-eight percent (38%) correctly recognize that the tax rate currently paid by corporations in the United States is higher that the rate paid by corporations in most other industrialized countries. Thirty percent (30%) think the U.S. tax rate is lower than in most other industrialized nations, and five percent (5%) believe it’s about the same. A sizable number (27%) of Americans are not sure.
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The national survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on August 18-19, 2011 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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