Citizens' Willingness to Support New Taxes for COVID‐19 Measures and the Role of Trust

Abstract

The COVID‐19 public health pandemic has seen governments spend trillions of dollars to limit the spread of the COVID‐19 virus as well as to soften the economic blow from the shutting down of national economies. Subsequent budget shortfalls raise the question of how governments will pay for the direct and indirect costs associated with the COVID‐19 pandemic. In this article, we study the public's willingness to contribute through paying a new tax, with a focus on Canada. We find that both generalized social and political trust are associated with a greater willingness to support a COVID‐related tax and that generalized social trust, in particular, attenuates the negative effect of an experimentally manipulated, specified level of tax burden on policy support. These findings entail important implications for the public opinion and tax policies literature, as well as for policy makers. Related Articles Gainous, Jason, Stephen C. Craig, and Michael D. Martinez. 2008. “Social Welfare Attitudes and Ambivalence about the Role of Government.” Politics & Policy 36 (6): 972‐1004. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2008.00147 Shock, David R. 2013. “The Significance of Opposition Entrepreneurs on Local Sales Tax Referendum Outcomes.” Politics & Policy 41 (4): 588‐614. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12028 Wagle, Udaya R. 2013. “The Heterogeneity Politics of the Welfare State: Changing Population Heterogeneity and Welfare State Policies in High‐Income OECD Countries, 1980‐2005.” Politics & Policy 41 (6): 947‐984. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12053