For this year’s Milton Friedman Legacy Day activity, NTU Foundation asked taxpayers across the country what federal tax system they want. At our in-person event in downtown Washington, DC and online at our special voting page, we had over 650 total votes on if the current system should be kept or replaced with a FairTax, Flat Tax, National Transaction Tax, or a Value-Added Tax.
If you are unfamiliar with these tax systems, we had some fancy posters made to show the basic points and contentions associated with each (you can click on each to see the full resolution):
Here are the results broken down by those who attended our physical event and those voting via our survey online:
What Tax System Do Taxpayers Want? Results from NTU Foundation's Special Milton Friedman Legacy Day Poll | ||||
Tax Reform | Event Votes | Online Votes | Total | Percentage of Total |
Keep the Current System | 5 | 3 | 8 | 2.2% |
25 | 466 | 491 | 72.6% | |
49 | 103 | 152 | 22.5% | |
5 | 5 | 10 | 1.2% | |
9 | 6 | 15 | 1.5% | |
| Note: Votes do not reflect total participation. Some participants did not vote. | ||||
Put another way, here's an infographic put together by our fantastic Creative Content Manager, Tim Howland:
What do these results mean? Probably a few things:
- A consumption-based system is gaining steam across the country.
- Folks in DC are more rooted in an income-based system.
- Taxpayers are tired of the current system but don’t want alternatives that might increase compliance costs or complexity.
We need more information and more taxpayers in the network of voting and voicing their preferences. Stay tuned, we here at NTU Foundation are working on another survey to get a more clear idea on what people want out of their tax system.