University of Maryland survey finds bipartisan backing for wealth tax and higher capital gains taxes

A University of Maryland survey released October 1 puts roughly eight in ten Americans behind an annual federal tax of 2% on wealth above $50 million, rising to 3% above $1 billion, with 88% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans supporting it nationally and bipartisan majorities in nearly every one of the 11 states and 28 House districts the authors call competitive. The university's Program for Public Consultation polled more than 20,000 people between July 21 and August 17, and found comparable agreement on taxing capital gains at ordinary income rates for households earning $1 million or more: 83% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans nationally, majority support in every battleground surveyed, and an estimated $120 billion in revenue.

The revenue attached to each proposal rewards a second read: about $200 billion for the wealth tax, $120 billion for capital gains reform, $73 billion for an effective-rate increase on million-dollar households, $17 billion for an estate tax exemption cut from $15 million to $5 million, and roughly $1 billion for ending preferential treatment of hedge fund managers' income. That last figure is the smallest and drew the widest agreement—bipartisan majorities in all 39 battlegrounds, a distinction it shares with the capital gains proposal.

Taken together, the questions fix a definition of rich: $50 million in wealth, $1 million in income, a $5 million estate. The thresholds sit below the rhetoric that surrounds them, so the live question in these districts is not whether to tax billionaires but how far down the scale a majority will go.

Lowering the federal estate tax exemption from $15 million to $5 million, which would pull more inherited wealth into the estate tax, won majorities among Democrats in every battleground and among Republicans in 27 of 39, with national support at 71% among Democrats and 59% among Republicans, and an estimated $17 billion. Against the rest of the list, that question reaches further down the balance sheet than a $50 million wealth tax, and Republican majorities thin out faster: 27 of 39 here and 21 of 39 on the income-rate question, against every battleground on capital gains and carried interest.

Ending the preferential tax treatment of hedge fund managers' income, long a flashpoint in tax fairness debates, drew bipartisan majorities in all 39 battlegrounds, ranging from 75% to 93% among Democrats and 57% to 81% among Republicans. InvestmentNews, reporting the survey, flagged the finding as reason for advisors whose clients include private equity principals or hedge fund professionals to review plans, which is the right instinct: carry is compensation design, and compensation design is the part of a client's balance sheet with the most room to move. A provision this broadly popular while this thin on revenue looks symbolic—cheap to poll, hard to plan around for the clients who hold the carry.

The two remaining questions land on the same households. Taxing capital gains as ordinary income for incomes of $1 million or more would raise about $120 billion, while lifting the effective income tax rate for those households from an average of 27% to at least 29% would raise about $73 billion. Both drew majority support overall and among Democrats in every battleground; Republicans were more receptive to the capital gains change, with majorities in every battleground, than to the rate increase, which held Republican majorities in 21 of 39. The five estimates add to roughly $411 billion, a total the released findings do not present—and one to hold loosely, since two of the five are alternative treatments of the same filers, not complementary ones.

The released findings say nothing about the mechanics that decide whether any of this collects a dollar: how wealth gets valued, how often, who does the valuing, and what happens when an owner and a tax authority disagree about what a private company is worth. None of that is pollable, and all of it is where a revenue estimate either holds or evaporates; for advisors, the gap between the support numbers and the collection numbers is the gap between a client conversation and a client plan.

None of this is legislation, and the distance between a poll and a statute is where advisory firms earn their keep. The PPC chose its ground deliberately: competitive states and competitive House districts, the places where the votes that decide a majority sit. Republican support for a wealth tax ran as high as 84% in some battlegrounds; that does not tell a member of Congress what to do or an advisor what the code will say. It tells both of them what the next client meeting is about.

The planning surface is narrow and mundane: estate exemption, carried interest, the rate at which gains are taxed against ordinary income, the effective rate on seven-figure earnings—each moves the same handful of decisions, from when a gain gets realized to which vehicle holds charitable dollars, how a business changes hands, and how a fund principal's compensation is structured. A plan that works only under one version of those rules carries a political bet inside it, and that bet is now live in 39 districts both parties are contesting.

Watch the committee marks rather than the next poll. Whether a $50 million wealth tax threshold, a $5 million estate exemption, or an ordinary-income rate on million-dollar capital gains reaches a markup is what turns a survey finding into a planning deadline.