Feds Outpace Rest of Country in Donating to Presidential Campaign Fund
Fewer and fewer taxpayers are checking the box to spend $3 on elections.
Federal employees are twice as likely as average Americans to check the box on their tax returns to designate $3 to fund the presidential election campaign, a survey found.
Participation in the annual checkoff has fallen steadily since it was started in 1976, so analysts were not surprised when this month’s survey of greater Washington-area taxpayers by Accenture Federal Services showed that 70 percent have never anteed up.
Only 5.4 percent of overall taxpayers participated in 2015, according to a chart compiled by the Federal Election Commission, which tabulates data from the Internal Revenue Service. The fund is currently at just under $300 million, with last year’s $30 million total among the lowest annual take ever.
Accenture’s FedPulse survey, based on responses of 500 taxpayers in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia the week of March 14, found that men are twice as likely to check the box as women. Though baby boomers are participating less than previously, the analysts found, millennials may compensate to some extent: 14 percent of the younger cohort said they were checking the box for the first time in 2016.