Classes and Taxes: Income, Education, Ideology and (Un)Willingness to Pay

While public opinion research has identified the drivers of preferences for tax progressivity and support for redistribution, the study of willingness to pay taxes remains underdeveloped. This paper uses the 2016 ISSP cross national survey on the Role of Government and the Risks that Matter survey (OECD 2018) to identify which groups of voters are more likely to be willing to pay higher taxes. It shows that ideology, education and income interact to predict willingness to pay. Among left-wing respondents, income and education have a positive effect on willingness to pay taxes, whereas both variables reduce willingness to pay among the right. Thus, the core constituencies of left-wing parties composed of socio-cultural professionals and of production and service workers have different tax policy preferences. Socio-cultural professionals have higher education and income and are significantly more willing to pay taxes than production and service workers, who share lower education and income.