Seventy-two percent (72%) of voters think the IRS collects too much personal information that should remain private and that more privacy protections are needed. A Scott Rasmussen national survey found that 16% disagree and 12% are not sure.
Those totals include 41% who Strongly Agree that more privacy protections are needed and 4% who Strongly Disagree.
Eighty-one percent (81%) of Republicans think more protections are needed. So do 68% of Democrats and 64% of Independents.
President Biden’s Build Back Better proposal currently includes provisions that would give the IRS more access to personal and business financial information. Seventy-two percent (72%) of voters believe that some agents or political leaders would use additional information to harm political opponents. On that question, 14% disagree and 15% are not sure.
The desire for more privacy protection is found across the board. Among those who Strongly Favor the president’s plan, 62% believe the IRS already collects too much information. Among those who Somewhat Favor the Build Back Better plan, 72% believe additional privacy protections are needed.
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Note: Neither Scott Rasmussen, ScottRasmussen.com, nor RMG Research, Inc. have any affiliation with Rasmussen Reports. While Scott Rasmussen founded that firm, he left more than seven years ago and has had no involvement since that time.
Question 1:
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: “The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collects too much personal information that should remain private. We need to put more privacy protections in place.”
41% Strongly agree
31% Somewhat agree
12% Somewhat disagree
4% Strongly disagree
12% Not sure
Question 2:
Suppose the IRS had access to more personal information. How likely is it that some agents or political leaders would use that information to harm political opponents?
42% Very likely
30% Somewhat likely
9% Not very likely
5% Not at all likely
15% Not sure
Methodology
The survey of 1,000 Registered Voters was conducted online by Scott Rasmussen on October 18-20, 2021. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. Certain quotas were applied, and the sample was lightly weighted by geography, gender, age, race, education, internet usage, and political party to reasonably reflect the nation’s population of Registered Voters. Other variables were reviewed to ensure that the final sample is representative of that population.
The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 3.1percentage points.
