Do you think the tax system is fair?

A CNN poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation asked the question, "How fair do you think our present federal tax system is? Overall, would you say that our tax system is very fair, moderately fair, not too fair or not fair at all?"

Some press reports have reported that the results indicate the country is evenly divided on the issue with 49% responding that the system is fair and with 50% saying opining that it is not fair. The details hint otherwise though. Here are the results.

Response	Percent
Very fair	4%
Moderately fair	45%
Not too fair	30%
Not fair at all	20%

A more complete picture of the results gets interesting outside of the 75 percent of respondents in the middle. Five times as many people responded "Not fair at all" than responded "very fair." These numbers do not appear to have changed much over the last 25 years.

What has changed is the way people feel about the taxes they paid. The poll asked, "Are you very angry about the amount of federal incomes taxes you or your family paid last year, or fairly angry, or fairly satisfied, or very satisfied -- or don't you have any particular feeling one way or the other about the amount of federal income taxes you or your family paid last year?" The responses from this poll and from similar LA Times polls in 1985 and 1986 were:

Response	1985	1986	2010
Very angry	6%	11%	15%
Fairly angry	21%	23%	25%
Fairly satisfied	40%	28%	29%
Very satisfied	7%	5%	7%
No feeling	23%	19%	24%

This is an increase in angry responses from 27/33 percent in 1985/1986 to 40 percent.
Taxpayers do not seem to want to take their frustrations out on the IRS though. Respondents were asked, "Do you think the Internal Revenue Service should be abolished, or don't you feel that way?" A majority of people did not think that the IRS should be abolished. The results in this poll and in a 1998 CNN/Time poll were:

Response	1998	2010
Should	39%	26%
Should not	55%	70%
No opinion	6%	4%

The survey was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation and CNN April 9-11, 2010. The margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is plus or minus 3 percent. To see the entire survey, go to http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/04/14/rel7f.pdf.