Today is April 15th, the oh-so-dreaded Tax Day. Or is it?

Sixty-two percent of all respondents in the poll said the income tax they have to pay is fair, while 30 percent called it unfair. That includes 6 in 10 Republicans and independents, and just over two-thirds of Democrats – a display of cross-party agreement rarely seen on any topic. It also includes most liberals, moderates and conservatives.

Majorities across all income groups, moreover, called their income tax fair. Sixty-two percent of Americans in households earning $50,000 or less said so, as did the same percentage of people in households earning more.

Perhaps even more surprising, though, is that even among the 18 percent of Americans who say they support the Tea Party movement, more than half call their own income tax fair. Sentiment turns more sour, however, among the smaller group of Tea Party supporters who are active in the movement. Most of them, 55 percent, regard the income tax they have to pay as unfair.

It’s only among “the smaller group of Tea Party supporters who are active in the movement” (you know, the ones you see with Obama-as-Hitler signs in Founding Father costumes screaming their heads off) where over half found their taxes to be unfair according to the poll (and it’s no surprise that many of these people tend to be wealthier). That’s pretty surprising for the “Taxed Enough Already” so-called movement (though I think it’s another sign that all their supposed issues aren’t really what they are mad about), but to be honest, I find these results pretty surprising overall. Other polling has found that a huge majority of Americans mistakenly believe that either their taxes have remained the same or gone up under the Obama administration when, in fact, 98 percent of all Americans received a tax cut under the economic stimulus package. Individuals received $400 and married couples received $800 in what was the biggest middle class tax cut in history, but likely many don’t recognize this because of rampant misinformation from the right and the fact that the cuts came in the form of higher paychecks since last April instead of a lump sum check as under the Bush administration. On the other hand, the average tax refund jumped 10% from last year. How can anyone not notice that? In any case, it seems more people hate doing their taxes rather than paying them.

This is pretty encouraging, since for the longest time the tax issue has been the biggest economic wedge issue for conservatives (and I daresay, the main reason any non-right wing ideologue and/or religious fundamentalist becomes a Republican), despite the fact that their hero Ronald Reagan increased taxes more than any other peacetime president. Even though we’re in a time when even most Republicans think the rich should pay more and the IRS is more popular than the teabaggers, I’m not sure if this means will soon be getting to the point where people actually think taxes can ever reasonably be raised on anyone but the richest Americans at some point, though it amuses me to think we might possibly channel conservative anger of reports that 47% of Americans don’t even pay federal income tax (this, of course, ignores that FICA payroll tax and other federal and state taxes they may pay, but I digress).

Of course, most taxes increases should be targeted on the wealthy who received so many tax cuts under the Bush administration and over the past several decades, especially right now, but I do think it’s a bad facet of our political culture that Democrats are only ever willing to talk about tax increases on those making over a quarter of a million dollars  a year and Republicans are opposed to any tax increases when we have a fiscal situation that can’t possibly be solved by marginal increases in taxation and decreases in spending (I’d start with the military-industrial complex myself). But I’ll take this as a sign that people might have grown up in regards to this issue and realized that the government can’t provide all the services you want without any money.