What a flat tax would mean for Arizona

Paul Bentz, the Senior Vice President of Research and Strategy of HighGround, did a poll about the support for a flat tax in Arizona cities and found there isn’t much among voters. We talked with him about the poll and the flat tax bill making its way through the Legislature.

It’s critical to have bipartisan support for a tax like this, and neither side likes it, yet it seems like the Legislature will pass it. A flat tax has not helped other states, it has shown to decrease funding.

We talked about people are feeling about the audit in the coliseum. He said a majority of the support is from the Republicans. In the poll, a large portion of Republicans believes that there was a fraud that significantly impacted the election.

He said it is not a huge surprise, but it was surprising that 20% of Republicans don’t believe there was a fraud and don’t support the audit. Bentz said a republican candidate supporting the audit would help them in the primary election but not in the general election.

We look at the flat tax in the Legislature. Tax cuts are overwhelmingly popular, Bentz said. He said that it would be a 1.9 billion dollar cut and many people oppose it because of this.

In the survey, people said investing in education is much more important than having a tax cut. He said people think the state is underfunded when it comes to education.

He talks about winning statewide office and how you need to win Maricopa county. Things like the audit and the flat tax tend to send people in the wrong direction. Bentz said it will be a tough electoral issue for November of 2022. We talked about if a referendum was on the ballot and if he thinks it would fail on the ballot. Bentz said he believes it would fail.