The latest tax poll from Essential Research, published on Pollytics blog, shows again that question wording effects make opinions on tax and spend hard to read.

In this latest poll, a question which did mention bigger tax cuts for high than low income earners, but did not mention the deficit or any spending trade-offs, found that 60% of respondents approved of the 1 July tax cuts. 23% disapproved.

The disapproval rate is only half the 47% of Newspoll respondents in early May who thought the tax cuts should be cancelled to reduce the deficit.

I don’t think that opinion could have changed that much in two and a bit months. Rather, question wording can highlight the otherwise not top-of-mind link between the size of the defict and the tax cuts.