National Affairs: Sop the Rich

As certain as taxes is the assumption that nobody likes to pay them. Crisscrossing the U.S. at tax-filing time, Gallup pollsters asked sweating form-fillers whether they felt they were overtaxed, learned that 61% did. The total, reported Gallup, was up 2% from a similar survey four years ago, but lower than the 71% who complained of being overtaxed in 1952 before reductions were made.

Though six out of ten thought taxes too high, the polltakers discovered that most citizens thought they should be reduced only slightly in lower-income brackets, e.g., from the present $65 to $60 for a family of four with $3,000-a-year income. Asking people in all brackets to fix a theoretical tax on the high-income man, Gallup found overwhelming sympathy for the big taxpayer: e.g., the public would lower the income tax on $50,000-a-year-with-four-exemptions incomes from the Government's $18,294 to about $7,900.