The PP seems to find support in the latest CIS poll for its proposal to reduce the tax burden in Spain. According to the study, carried out last July, 27% of Spaniards today are more in favor of "paying less taxes even if public services have to be reduced", which is five points more than a year ago and eight points more than in 2020, in full bloom of the pandemic.
The problem for any auction of tax reductions in Spain is that the majority of citizens (40%) continue to be more in favor of "improving public services even if more taxes have to be paid". And to that percentage we must add another 30%, in favor of leaving things as they are. Of course, in 2020, almost half of Spaniards were committed to improving services even at the cost of increasing taxes.
The CIS survey on Public Opinion and Fiscal Policy also reveals that more than 40% of citizens consider that Spain pays "a lot in taxes", compared to less than 10% who believe that little is paid. The relevance of these figures lies in the contrast with the annual series. The current rate is five points less than in 2021 and is, together with that of 2020, the lowest in the last two decades.
The annual series yield another striking conclusion: the Spanish believe that more is paid in taxes when the Popular Party governs. In 2002, with Aznar at the head of the Government, more than 66% of those consulted by the CIS thought that a lot was paid in taxes, a percentage that fell below 55% during the stage of the socialist Rodríguez Zapatero. Then, with Rajoy in the presidency, that rate approached 69% in 2013, and only started to drop below 60% in 2018.
At the same time, Spaniards today have a more realistic view of fiscal pressure in the European environment. Until 2019, the rate of respondents who believed that less taxes were paid in Spain than in the rest of Europe did not usually reach 20%; but now that figure is close to 36%. The problem is that 80% believe that taxes are not collected "fairly" and that 62% consider that they receive less than what they contribute.
