Republicans argue that cutting the corporate tax rate would make America more competitive and super-charge the economy. While Trump voters believe them to some extent, most of them don’t want big business breaks. | Getty Republicans face headwinds among Trump voters over corporate tax cuts

As Republicans craft the first major tax-code rewrite in more than 30 years, they’ll have to be wary of the voters who put their man in the White House.

While Trump voters generally believe tax cuts help the economy, a majority of them don't support cuts for anyone but the middle class, according to a poll of voters’ priorities for Trump’s first 100 days conducted by POLITICO and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Among the general public as a whole, slightly more than half favor tax cuts for low-income Americans, with middle-income cuts coming in a close second.


Another potential hurdle for tax-reform evangelists: 30 percent of Trump voters and 42 percent of the general public believe GOP tax cuts would “not at all” benefit them personally.

When poll respondents were asked to choose among six issues that should be extremely or very important for Trump's first 100 days in office, 58 percent of Trump voters named tax cuts, behind repealing Obamacare, aggressive action to stop illegal immigration and major increases in defense spending.

Tax cuts were a much lower priority for others, with just 36 percent saying it was a priority. Their top priority, at 49 percent, was major new government spending on infrastructure.

Republicans have drawn most of the urgency for tax reform from the flight of American corporations abroad. They argue that cutting the corporate tax rate would make America more competitive and super-charge the economy. While Trump voters believe them to some extent, most of them don’t want big business breaks. The general public is even more sour on them.

If there are such tax cuts, almost twice as many Trump supporters as the general public — 62 percent versus 32 percent — believe they would lead to new jobs and major economic growth. Only 5 percent of Trump voters say such cuts would produce no new jobs, compared with 26 percent of the general public.

Just over nine in 10 Trump voters think lowering corporate taxes would be very or somewhat effective at bringing jobs back to the United States, the central theme of Trump's campaign. A little over six in 10 in the general public feel that way.

Nonetheless, there’s relatively little support for the corporate rate cuts at the core of Republicans’ campaign to overhaul the tax code. Only 39 percent of Trump voters believe corporate taxes should be cut, compared with 22 percent of the general public.

“If he does do some kind of corporate tax cut, his voters wouldn’t be that [upset]” since they think it would generate growth, said John Benson, a member of the Harvard research team that worked on the poll. But the push to cut business rates would come from outside the Trump constituency, he said.

During the campaign, Trump proposed a plan that would lower corporate taxes to 15 percent from the current 35 percent. House Republicans have proposed a 20 percent rate.

When it comes to taxes on individuals, the only group a majority of Trump voters — 59 percent — think should get relief is middle-income taxpayers, compared with 48 percent of the general public. A majority of the general public — 52 percent — would give the largest slice to low-income Americans, compared to 43 percent of Trump voters.

Less than one in five of either group supports tax cuts for upper-income Americans, with 18 percent of Trump voters and 13 percent of the general public in favor of those cuts.

Both the Trump plan and the House GOP plan include across-the-board tax cuts. The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation concluded in September that the top 1 percent would see the biggest increase in their after-tax incomes — as much as 16 percent — under Trump's plan. Those in the middle quintile of incomes would see, at most, a 9 percent boost, the group said.

Similarly, the centrist Tax Policy Center said the top 1 percent would get an average tax cut of $215,000 under Trump's plan. Those in the middle of the income spectrum would see an average $1,010 tax cut, while those at the bottom would see their taxes fall by $110.

The Trump team has disputed those numbers. In a post-election interview with CNBC, Trump's Treasury secretary nominee, Steve Mnuchin, said “There will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class” and “it will be very clear this is a middle-income tax cut.”

For the most part, Trump voters are more supportive than the general public of cutting taxes for individuals, with one exception: 52 percent of the general public favors lowering taxes for low-income taxpayers, compared with 43 percent of Trump voters.

The split on whether cuts for individuals generate economic growth breaks down along familiar political lines.

Trump voters are more likely to think individual tax cuts will boost the economy, with 59 percent saying such cuts would lead to major growth, compared with 35 percent of the public at large.

The poll results suggested a growing divide between Republican voters and the GOP leadership on trade and taxes, according to Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard. (While congressional Republicans still favor free trade for the most part, 55 percent of Trump voters said withdrawing or renegotiating NAFTA was an "extremely" or "very important" priority.)

“I think it’s worse on taxes. We found among Trump voters, except for cutting taxes on middle-income people, there was no support for some major tax cuts, for upper-income people, corporations, big businesses,” said Blendon, who led the research team that coordinated with POLITICO on the poll.

“It’s interesting, they say [tax cuts] will help the economy but they’re not very enthusiastic about [them] … there’s no drive from his voters to have that tax cut, except for middle-income people,” Blendon said.

There is one exception where a majority of Trump voters support business tax breaks: building the nation's infrastructure. Fifty-three percent of Trump voters believe major business tax credits for infrastructure should be an urgent priority in the first 100 days of the new administration.

Just 40 percent of the general public agrees. It says infrastructure investment should be the top priority if funding takes the form of direct federal spending.

The survey was conducted by SSRS, an independent research company, for POLITICO and Harvard from Dec. 16-20, 2016. It used cellphones and landlines among a nationally representative sample of 1,023 U.S. adults.