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<aside> <img src="/icons/anchor_gray.svg" alt="/icons/anchor_gray.svg" width="40px" /> This report is part of our work on Deep Opportunity, which argues that we need to tackle the underlying barriers to opportunity - wealth inequality, our unfair tax system and aspects of our democracy - to make progress on issues such as poverty, poor housing and insecure work that undermine the educational prospects of disadvantaged children.
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<aside> <img src="/icons/binoculars_gray.svg" alt="/icons/binoculars_gray.svg" width="40px" /> See also our spotter’s guide to tax reforms, with notes on revenue impacts, fairness, political status and public support. Birdwatching imagery and metaphors included at no extra cost.
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64% of Britons support keeping taxes as they are (33%) or increasing them (31%), with just 16% wanting tax cuts if it means cutting public services. Even among Conservative voters, the proportion of voters who back tax cuts (17%) is vastly outnumbered by those who want to see public spending and taxes maintained (50%) or even increased (23%). However, young people are notable outliers, with 29% supportive of tax cuts and reduced public spending, compared to 16% across the whole population.
Thinking about the amount of money the government raises in taxes and then spends on public services (such as health and education), do you think they should…
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Click on the yellow dropdown to select a group of respondents
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The answers to this question (taking the first two together) are consistent with recent polling showing that a majority of Britons think government should prioritise spending on public services rather than cutting taxes (while other polling suggests that the public are not averse to government borrowing in order to invest in the economy). There is clearly not a public clamour for tax cuts at all costs. Higher support among young people for tax cuts may be linked to the fact that public spending has been protected in areas they use least, such as health and social care, and that they see fewer direct benefits of many public services.
Two in three people (65%) support reforming capital gains tax so that income from wealth is taxed either at the same rate or at a higher rate than income from work, with only 15% opposed. A strong majority (60%) of Conservative voters support reform, with 24% opposed, while support is even higher among Labour voters (72%). Support is fractionally weaker among people aged 35-64 (61%) than among younger and older people. Household income does not have a strong impact on levels of support, with 66% of people in households with income over £60,000 in favour of reform.
Income from wealth (capital gains tax on profits from things like share trading or property) is taxed at a lower rate than income from work. Do you think that income from wealth should be taxed…
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Click on the yellow dropdown to select a group of respondents
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Polling in recent years has shown consistently high levels of support for taxing income from wealth in line with income from work. For example, Ben Ansell found 62% support for this policy (including 50% support from Conservatives), and suggested that one reason for this level of support is that people believe that the status quo, whereby income from capital gains is taxed less than income from work, is fundamentally unfair. This has been underlined by research showing that some people on incomes of £10m per year pay an effective tax rate of just 21%, the same as someone on a median UK income, because much of their income comes in the form of capital gains – a point reinforced when Rishi Sunak’s tax return was published (while Keir Starmer also benefited from low CGT rates).