ICM poll for the Taxpayers Alliance
Lots of media attention over the Taxpayers Alliance’s new poll by ICM over the weekend (the full tables are here, but are 224 pages and 5 MB, so be warned. A shorter presentation is here). As one might expect, the poll concentrated upon taxation but also addressed crime, education and health. For the record most of the questions were asked using a 0 to 10 scale, with 0 being total disagreement and 10 being total agreement. The topline figures presented by the TA are based on all those saying 6-10 as being yes, and all those saying 0-4 being no, with 5 being neutral. For some other questions I (like the Taxpayers Alliance) have used the average score on the scale of 0-10.
56% gave a positive response to the statement that “if Britain reformed public services and cut waste it could lower taxes without having to cut spending on vital services?”, with only 17% disagreeing. This is actually nothing new - past polls have found even more support for such statements (this ICM poll for Reform in 2003, for example, found 81% agreed that “if the government reformed public services and cut waste it could make services better and reduce tax at the same time”). The polling evidence is very strong that people think it is possible to cut taxes without damaging public services. The question is firstly whether they would actually think such a thing was desirable, and secondly whether they think any of the present political parties could or would do it.
The ICM/Taxpayers Alliance poll asked people about a series of taxes and asked them to say if they would like to have them cut. Unsurprisingly every tax listed had a majority of people in favour of cutting it - obviously taxes are unpopular. What is more interesting, and more surprising, is which potential tax cuts met with the most support. On a scale of 0-10, with 10 being definitely would like to see it cut and 0 being definitely not, the tax that people most supported a cut in was council tax with an average score of 8.13. It was followed by, somewhat surprisingly, inheritance tax with an average of 7.83 and an increase in threshold where people start paying 40% tax. Raising the personal allowance to take some people out of tax entirely had an average rating of 7.67, lowering the basic rate of income tax a rating of 7.51, lowering VAT 7.37 and lowering business taxation 6.91.
While it comes as no surprise to find council tax at the top of the taxes that people want to see cut, inheritance tax and the higher rate threshold are somewhat more surprising. These are taxes that impact the relatively wealthy (in assets or in income respectively), yet cuts in them are more popular than cuts that would benefit the less well-off, such as increasing the personal allowance. It seems as though targeting tax cuts at the least well off doesn’t suddenly make them politically acceptable (though, of course, it may have wider ramifications in terms of a party’s political image. Even if a policy is itself popular, if it makes a party look like it is only concerned for the wealthy it could potential be an electoral negative.)
ICM also asked people whether they agreed or disagreed with a list of arguments in favour of lower taxation. The most agreed with argument was “Lower taxes would allow you to spend more of your hard-earned money on your own priorities”. This was followed by arguments in favour of increasing the treshhold for the top level of taxation and the personal allowance, which both specifically related the cuts to how they would affect individuals. Finally, there was high agreement with two ‘anti-politician’ arguments, which promoted tax cuts as a way of controlling politicians, e.g. “It’s morally wrong that politicians take so much of our money then waste it. We should cut taxes to force them to budget better.” ICM’s focus groups revealed the same message “Tax cuts have to be presented in specific terms that make sense to individuals, and from the anti-politician rather than the ideological perspective.”
The arguments with the lowest levels of support are also instructive. Arguments that cited the positive effects of free markets and involving private business in providing services rated poorly. The argument that we should “stop subsidising Scotland so much so the English can have a tax cut” also rated poorly. The bottom rating argument was “Labour’s tax rises have damaged Britain’s economy and they’ve managed services badly. The Conservatives would manage things better which would provide savings for tax cuts” - my suspicion is that part of the reason that this argument rated lower than all the others is the mention of the word Conservative.
Looking briefly at the other subjects addressed in the poll, the focus groups suggested that people had very little idea of how the NHS worked or the fundementals of policy. They thought that money had been wasted on a grand scale, but that the service would probably have been even worse without it. There was no faith in politicians being able to improve it, but no confidence in private companies to do so either. On education arguments about exams getting easier went down very badly in focus groups (as being “unfair on the kids”), but people did agree that standards of literacy and numeracy had got worse. Concepts like competition raising standards in schools did not chime with the groups. On the issue of crime, when asked to rate several possible explanations for crime “weak sentencing” was seen as the worst cause of crime, followed by poor education and poor rehabilitation. Immigration and family breakdown were the explanations seen as least convincing by the public. In every area TA/ICM found that privatisation was very negatively perceived, concluding that the term is probably tarnished beyond the point of rescue.
The Taxpayer’s Alliance’s conclusion is not that the Conservative party should immediately adopt a low tax agenda. Past polling has shown that people do not believe that the Conservatives would cut taxes whatever they promise and the TA/ICM’s focus groups support this finding - people do not believe they would be any different. Rather the Taxpayers Alliance conclude that a tax cutting agenda would have to be promoted from an anti-politician angle and, while the Conservative party could in theory present itself as an anti-establishment, anti-Westminster party, it would require such a change that the better course of action would probably be for third party groups to campaign on the low tax agenda independently of parties (such as, of course, the Taxpayers Alliance).
I would add one caveat to the poll. For all of the taxes listed ICM found a majority of people said they would like it to be cut - however, this question was asked directly after a list of 16 arguments in favour of tax cuts. Taxes are inherently unpopular anyway, so it should come as no surprise that in a direct question people say cut them. In reality though tax cuts are paid for in some way, shape or form which may make them less popular. There can be little doubt from this poll and from previous polls that people do think it is perfectly possible for taxes to be cut without damaging public services, but that doesn’t mean that they necessarily think that money raised in such a fashion should be spent on tax cuts when put alongside alternatives. Prior to the last election a couple of polls asked the question of, if the government did manage to save lots of money through efficency savings, would they rather it was spent on tax cuts or ploughed back into public services. In both cases, two-thirds of people said they would prefer the money to be spent on public services rather than tax cuts.
While it comes as no surprise to find council tax at the top of the taxes that people want to see cut, inheritance tax and the higher rate threshold are somewhat more surprising. These are taxes that impact the relatively wealthy (in assets or in income respectively), yet cuts in them are more popular than cuts that would benefit the less well-off, such as increasing the personal allowance. It seems as though targeting tax cuts at the least well off doesn’t suddenly make them politically acceptable
What?! You’re actually arguing that 78% approval of a proposed tax cut can be used as evidence against the political acceptability of tax cuts? Surely the poll is evidence (not conclusive proof, but evidence) that tax cuts are politically acceptable even if they do arguably benefit the relatively wealthy?
It’s as if a poll showed 83% of people liked ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ and 78% liked ‘The Weakest Link’ and therefore you concluded that getting a presenter like Chris Tarrant didn’t change the fact that people actually hate TV game shows, because Ann Robinson’s show is rated almost as highly.
In reality though tax cuts are paid for in some way, shape or form which may make them less popular.
Of Labour rhetoric, this is true. In fiscal reality, it’s the other way around: tax cuts don’t have to be paid for, government spending does - and taxes fund that spending.
Peter,
I suspect that you would get over 90% support for immortality, but that doesn’t make it practical.
Some things like taxes and red tape are universally unpopular so it’s unsurprising that people want changes. A poll on better weather would show similar results.
I remember Clair Short once commenting that when campaigning in a council estates people on benefit and rent rebates would say they wanted tax cuts, and she would remind them that they didn’t pay tax.
When I was a councillor whenever a hard decision on the budget arose their would be letters to the local paper attacking councillors allowances ( which to be honest were over budget and some did abuse).
The problem was that the total allowance budget was £1m out of an annual budget of almost £400m, so even if we had been able to slash it when £400,000 was basic salary and most of the rest was down to petrol in an area larger than Belgium with only 200,000 population, we could have have maybe raised about 0.05% of the budget.
In reality people did see waste and where it is found it should be dealt with, but the public perception of how much things cost and the scale of savings really doesn’t match with the reality fo public finances.
It’s like being stuck on a delayed train. The reason it can’t move is that the track ahead is being used, but you’ll always get some one who sticks his head out and says” I can’t see anything ahead, why and we moving it’s a disgrace”, and gets a chorus of here here’s from the other passengers.
Peter.
No surprise in this poll to me . Everyone wants tax cuts for themselves and noone wants benefits/allowances or services cut which would affect themselves . Most people I think realise that tax cuts have to be made up from somewhere else and would support fair redistribution of taxes .
One of the very early stages on the Labour Party’s road from 1992 to 1997 was the Fabian Study “Southern Discomfort” (1993) which did some focus group studies of southern marginal floating voters and their attitudes to tax. They specifically asked why opinion polls found that voters backed increased taxes and more spending on public services, then voted for parties offering precisely the opposite.
They found that the voters were very reluctant to have to make the choice between tax cuts and service improvements at all. When forced to choose they marginally came down on the side of services, but paid for by tax rises on those who were earning just above the level which they hoped to get to when the next boom came.
Peter C - the first point is that the rhetoric of the Conservative party in recent years has always concentrated on the benefit that it would give to the less well off, presumably as a defence against them being accused of not helping the poor. The message that it seemed to convey is just that, that the Conservative party did indeed think that tax cuts were only acceptable when they benefited the less well off. And yes, the poll does indeed suggest that tax cuts that benefit the well off are just as (or more) acceptable than tax cuts targetted at the less well off.
Paid for, accounted for, whatever. The point is that any political promise to cut taxes will envitably be accompanied by questions of how the sums will add up. It doesn’t necessarily have to be through cuts in X or savings in Y, a tax cut could just as well be “paid for” through larger government deficits in the expectation that subsequent revenue would rise, but that would affect whether people supported it or not just as much as it it were funded by a cut in some service.
Anthony - that may be the Conservatives’ rhetoric, but Osborne has been making some quite different noises (in respect of Stamp Duty and Inheritance Tax) lately.
David Boothroyd’s point is perhaps the most relevant - people are quite happy for taxes to be paid by others - who doesn’t want something for nothing? (Try asking house-owners whether people who live in flats pay enough Council Tax…)
Actually, I suspect Councils could take advantage of this - it would require the Local Government Association (or whatever it’s called these days) to lobby for a clause in the next Finance Bill.
My idea is that Councils would have the option to send out Council tax bills at two levels - one as now, the other (say) 2.5% higher but with a 1 in 50 chance of a total refund (an anti-tax lottery). It would be very interesting to see how many people went for the latter option - I suspect it might help a few Councils to retain and/or improve services.
All right, it’s past my bedtime…
This is a completely worthless poll. People want better public services and tax cuts - it isn’t possible, efficiency tinkering will always be overwhelmed by increased costs (for example new drug treatments, improved technologies, pensions etc). You might as well ask people if they think they should be paid more or have longer holidays.
Anthony, my affection for this site is well known but I am a little shocked. I had a quick scan through the short presentation and it looked pretty bogus to me.
For starters, I would be wary of any supposedly serious presentation on tax which did not at least try to define what a tax is. Are we just talking about income and corporation taxes? Or are we including NIC, inheritance and council taxes, and various forms of local charges such as the congestion charge and road tolls? This isn’t just a point of pedantry. If you are going to make a serious point about the things people feel strongly about, you have got to be fairly clear about what exactly those things are, who is responsible for them, and how they could be better managed. Otherwise you are just inviting a generalised rant, which might be perfectly understandable but isn’t likely to produce a coherent and practical attempt to remedy anything, always assuming there is something to remedy in the first place.
Secondly, how much ‘tax’ are we talking about here? From what source(s)? And precisely what services are to be cut as a consequence? Airy references to saving tax by ‘cutting waste’ are generally an indication that somebody is banging a political drum because the amounts that could be saved by even the most ruthless efficiency programme would make little difference to a domestic budget the size of the UK. Since most people have some idea of the difficulties in controlling their own domestic budget, it shouldn’t be too difficult to comprehend the task of controlling a national budget but of course in the case of the latter, there is somebody else to blame for overspending, so it is not surprising that people do just that.
Sorry Anthony but this looks a right load of tosh. I’m surprised at you giving it house room.
The stamp duty one is as far as I am aware, supposed to be self financing or at least to aid in boasting pension funds, the idea being that removing a small tax, would mean more shares were traded at higher prices with pension funds being among the largest beneficaries.
My branch of the SNP once put forward a similiar proposal to conference on the basis that if the Scottish parliament had the fiscal powers we could cut it in Scotland to give us a competative advantage over London.
The idea was that the number of extra business that it would generate and new jobs would through business rates, corporation tax, income tax and vat, plus the general economic boast, create far more tax revenue than the small amount of stamp duty currently raised in Scotland from shares.
It didn’t get on the agenda and was attacked by people on the left of the party, but if it ended up creating more revenue than stamp duty for public services it’s hard to see what people would have against it.
Peter.
Peter t. Punter - the presentation is up there because I thought some people might not want to download the 5 Meg tables, and it includes some of the focus group info. As with any poll, I’d always suggest you base any conclusions on what the figures say, not what other people say the figures say. With that in mind, the points I drew out of it are supported by the data.
Whether it is or not, polls show that people do believe that it is possible to fund tax cuts through cutting waste.
As mentioned above, I don’t think the percentage of people saying they thought each tax cut would be desirable are useful, firstly because the questions didn’t indictate how or if the cuts would be funded, which in the real world would be a factor in public support for a tax cut, secondly because they were asked straight after a list of 16 statements supporting tax cuts. That shouldn’t however, affect the relative popularity of the different tax cuts proposed, which is the point I highlighted above.
The message testing questions on which arguments for tax cuts people most agree with are interesting in themselves, and I can see no problem with them.
The info on other public services from the focus groups is presented as is - take it or leave it.
Even if you think the Taxpayers Alliance’s conclusions from their poll are bunkum, there is certainly interesting and valid information within the poll.
Thanks for responding, Anthony.
I am sure people do believe it is possible to fund tax cuts through cutting waste, in much the same way that they believe it is possible to lose weight by eating less and exercising more. Of course what people think is interesting even if what they think is plainly daft but this survey seemed to be masquerading as a serious contribution tot he tax debate which is why I took a few minutes out to debunk it.
As a column filler in a none-too-serious publication it would be harmless enough but it is a little worrying when it achieves prominence on a worthy and enlightening site like this. As a regular reader, I hope you don’t mind me saying so.
Not sure I agree with your last sentence. How valid and informative can information be when it arises from such a tendentious source?
Peter - at the end of the day the source is ICM. Whichever group or organisation has commissioned ICM to conduct the poll, ICM’s professional standards are going to remain the same.
Did they collect any figures on the public’s view of a hypothetical distribution of free ponies whilst they were at it?
Oddly enough, you haven’t mentioned the answer that made the main story in the Sunday Times - which reported that 10 million people ‘want to quit over-taxed Britain’.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2330678,00.html
That number seems quite incredible, even allowing for its over-egging in the paper. Have there been similar questions in other surveys for comparison?
Richard - a very similar and more detailed poll on people wanting to emmigrate was done by ICM earlier this month for the BBC (see here).
The question structure was different, the BBC headlined it as saying that 53% of people considered leaving Britain - an extreme case of over-egging. The question actually asked people to say if they were, had ever, or ever would consider emigrating and got the 53% by subtracting the people who said they would never consider it. The better figure there was probably the 13% of people who said they were hoping to emigrate in the near future. Unless there is a sudden massive hike in emmigration figures, that is just a lot of people with pipe dreams, but it does illustrate that a very substantial chunk of people would like to emmigrate.
The ICM/BBC poll also included an open ended question about why people hoped to emigrate. Only 5% of them specifically said tax was too high here - the most mentioned reasons were better quality of life (37%) and better weather (32%), too expensive living in Britain (24%).
Anthony,
One issue that worries me about these polls even if they are associated with someome like ICM is when the commissioner can add a spin to a question to make it look like support.
So as an example, based on your figures above, if you already know thet 53% ( over twenty million adults) have thought about emigrating then asking,
“Have you thought about emigrating” and tagging on “High Tax Britain”, has got a good chance of getting a lot of “Yes’s”.
Political parties do it all the time is there mock consultations, but would a company like YouGov, be prepared to ask it, or would it insist on either
“Has the level of tax in Britain made you consisder emigrating”
or a twin question, first asking about emigration and then a follow up asking if tax was the reason.
I suppose what I want to know is where the power lies, with the client or the pollster.
Peter.
The abroad question here had nothing at all to do with “high tax Britain” - it was just “Have you given serious thought to or are you planning to move abroad?”
Looking around the Taxpayers Alliance website, I can’t see them portraying as such either (though it was only a brief look, it might be there somewhere) so it could just be the newspapers.
More generally speaking, clients give pollsters a list of questions and then pollsters adjust them to make them suitable, unbiased and so on. Who has the final say? Both do in a way, a client can go off in a huff and find another pollster or a pollster can refuse to ask a question. Generally wording that both parties are happy with is eventually arrived at.
the british electorate rejected a lower tax party on three occasions.they deserve to be one of the highest taxed countries in the world.they voted for it.they now have taxes equivalent to 44% of gdp.china is 38%.the only job growth is government.
Anthony
Just for the avoidance of doubt, I have absolutely no problem with the way ICM conducts its polls and am sure that it does so to the highest professional standards. My problem - as I am sure everybody is aware by now - is with the commissioning body, its terms of reference and the purposes to which the results are put.
Anyway, I’ve made my points and am happy for others to draw their own conclusions about them - and ‘The Taxpayers’ Alliance’.
Warm regards
The reputable pollsters will generally draw the line against a question which clearly leads towards a particular answer, though of course there’s always a very difficult question over what exactly is leading and what isn’t. MORI, to its eternal credit, refused to change the question in polls commissioned by the Referendum Party in 1996, and then sacked the Referendum Party as a client: Sir Jams had looked askance at the suggestion that his party was only polling 0.5% and wanted the figure raised.
I think the real problem have with polls like this is the spin, rather than the poll itself. having taken part in the poll commissioned by my own party ( The SNP) I know that the results that appeared in the press didn’t cover all the questions I was asked.
In that respect as the Client often controls what is realised in to the public domain they have real power to put a spin on it.
Equally even if the do ask balanced questions, by avoiding ones like,
“Would you be prepared to see tax rises to pay for the war on terror”,
or asking pensioners if
“They would support tax rises for the rich to fund better state pensions”,
the client can avoid getting results that show that some tax rises can be popular.
As far as I can see, (though I haven’t read through the full 5MB file) the TPA never asked, what would seem an obvious question too ask in a survey about taxation, namely,
“What would you be willing to pay more tax for, and what kind of tax”,
As David has pointed out, it’s the commissioning body and the purpose to which the results are put that people should question.
Peter.
In reality of course, clients can and do control if their findings are released or not. At the end of the day, it’s their data, and if they want to commission private polls or partially private polls that’s their choice.
Under the BPC rules, all member companies are supposed to release any data from partially published polls that contradicts or casts doubt upon the bits that are published. If, for example, a client asked the same question three different ways and only published the one that gave them the “best” answer, under BPC rules the pollster would release the other two questions as well.
I would always say that rule 1 in looking at a poll is not to believe what the press release or the commentary says (including my commentary!) - look at the actual figures and the actual tables.
Are you sure this polls leads to the conclusion that the public think that you can “reform the public services and cut waste”. There’s certainly no indication that the public think the politicians are capable of doing it. It reads to me as if that is an assumption contained within the question.
Taking out all the faff, the question basically says “if we can cut waste, will that cost less money?”
Well only people with a strange definition of waste are going to disagree with that.
Lots of interesting data - thanks for highlighting some of it. But the questions starting “How seriously do you take each of the following?” are in some cases astonishingly tendentious for any serious polling organisation, unless they feel sure that the question will be read as “Do you agree with…?” - I read them as statements of fact. For instance, it says that violence in schools is preventing learning, which I think many professionals would duisagree is true to any significant extent, and asks how seriously people regard this supposed phenomenon. If it were true that learning in schools had now ceased due to violence (or anything else) I can’t see how anyone would say anything except 10 out of 10.
Nick - the “how seriously do you take” wording was very strange, and I’m not quite sure how people would have answered them. I’m sure how I’d have answered them! Does it mean people think the claim is serious, or if it’s a serious problem within that field, or if it’s a serious problem for the nation? I don’t know and therefore I don’t know how much you can take from it.
The Taxpayers Alliance blog says the poll was originally done for internal purposes, but they later decided to release them. This does chime with the message testing of arguments for lower taxation, so perhaps the original aim of the questions was also message testing.
On questions asking what the most important issues facing the country are, I’m always very wary about responses being governed by what options the pollsters provides. I’d always point people in the direction of MORI’s monthly opened ended and unprompted version of the question (which, for what it’s worth, also puts crime up near the top).
Anthony,
Can I take it from what you said about the BPC that a client could ask the same question four different ways in a private poll and then ask the question that gave them the answer they wanted in a public or partical poll and the polster wouldn’t be able to reveal the answers from the previous private “test” poll.
Peter.
In theory they could, though they might want to use different pollsters…