Many North Carolinians expect to pay more in taxes this year

A new High Point University Poll finds nearly half (45%) of North Carolina residents expect to pay more in income taxes this year than they did last year. Only 10% said that they will pay less and one in five (20%) told us that they will pay the same in taxes as last year.

A majority (52%) of poll respondents said they consider the amount of federal income tax they have to pay as too high. About one-quarter (27%) said the amount they pay is about right and 4% said it’s too low. About 17% did not offer an opinion either way.

The poll also asked North Carolinians about several priorities that they would be willing to pay more in taxes for if that meant the government could spend more money on it. Majorities said they would pay more in taxes if the government would spend more money on reducing violent crime (59%), education (58%), health care in general (58%), and national security (53%). Fewer than half would be willing to spend more money in taxes if the government spent it on interstate roads (46%), slowing down climate change (39%), COVID-19 (31%), and foreign aid to developing countries (23%).

“The COVID-19 tax relief legislation was extended to March 2021 so those filing their taxes would have seen an increase in their tax liability,” said Brandon M. Dragone, visiting instructor of economics. “How this will impact consumer purchases in the near future is yet to be seen but could have an adverse effect on the economy.”

NC residents – Taxes This Year (March 2023)

Do you think you will pay more in income taxes this year or less in income taxes than you did last year or do you not pay any income taxes?

Pay less – 10%

Pay more – 45%

Pay the same – 20%

Did not pay any income taxes last year and will not pay any this year – 13%

Unsure – 13%

NC residents – Federal Tax Amount (March 2023)

 Do you consider the amount of federal income tax you have to pay as too high, about right, or too low?

Too high – 52%

About right – 27%

Too low – 4%

Unsure – 17%

NC residents – Tax Priorities (March 2023)

The most recent HPU Poll of 1,004 respondents was fielded by the High Point University Survey Research Center on March 23 through March 28, as an online survey using a panel of respondents recruited and maintained by Dynata. Dynata sent invitations to its panel of N.C. respondents and the SRC collected responses on its Qualtrics platform. The SRC did all data analysis. The online sample is from a panel of respondents, and their participation does not adhere to usual assumptions associated with random selection. Therefore, it is not appropriate to assign a classic margin of sampling error for the results. In this case, the SRC provides a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points to account for a traditional 95% confidence interval for the estimates (plus or minus 3.1 percentage points) and a design effect of 1.1 (based on the weighting). The data is weighed toward population estimates for age, gender, race/ethnicity and education based on U.S. Census numbers for North Carolina. Factors such as question wording and other methodological choices in conducting survey research can introduce additional errors into the findings of opinion polls.

Further results and methodological details from the most recent survey and past surveys can be found at the Survey Research Center website. The materials online include past press releases as well as memos summarizing the findings (including approval ratings) for each poll since 2010.

The HPU Poll reports methodological details in accordance with the standards set out by AAPOR’s Transparency Initiative, and the HPU Survey Research Center is a Charter Member of the Initiative.

You can follow the HPU Poll on Twitter.

Dr. Martin Kifer, chair and associate professor of political science, serves as the director of the HPU Poll, and Brian McDonald is the associate director of the HPU Poll.