Classes and Taxes : Socio-Economic Status, Ideology and (Un)Willingness to Pay

While public opinion research has identified the drivers of preferences for tax progressivity,public spending and support for redistribution, the study of willingness to pay taxes remainsunderdeveloped. This paper uses the 2016 ISSP cross national survey on the Role of Governmentand the Risks that Matter survey (OECD 2018) to identify which groups of voters are more likelyto be willing to pay higher taxes. It shows that ideology and income interact to predictwillingness to pay. Among left-wing respondents, socio-economic status, measured by incomeand education, has a positive effect on willingness to pay additional taxes. Thus, the coreconstituencies of left-wing parties composed of socio-cultural professionals and of productionand service workers have different tax policy preferences. Socio-cultural professionals have ahigher socio-economic status and are significantly more willing to pay taxes than production andservice workers, who share a lower socio-economic status