FINDINGS from the latest ICM poll for the Guardian illustrate, perfectly, the tax dilemma facing today's politicians. In the space of one turbulent month, this survey finds economic gloom spreading fast. Voters no longer confident about the future are now in the majority.

Overall, 51% of this sample is pessimistic, and the gloomiest assessment comes from the poorest voters. Across all voters, 48% are still confident. Among the poor the equivalent reading has nosedived to 33%.

But when the pollsters ask what should be done about it, the tax dilemma emerges with a vengeance. Overall, 75% of this sample, an ICM record, agrees that the gap between rich and poor in Britain is too wide.

Ask them about the proper role of tax in a 21st century economy and the contradictions spring to life.

A thumping 67% thinks people pay too much tax. Almost as big a majority (65%) thinks government doesn't put tax revenues to good use. But while 36% of this sample wants the party it supports to make tax cuts a priority, a majority (51%) wants it to maintain or even increase spending on public services.

Even among Tory voters, opinion is painfully split. While 43% wants lower taxes, 44% prefers sustained spending on services. Perhaps that's why David Cameron's Tory Party refuses to be radical on tax.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne made a major but little-reported speech on the subject last Friday, laying out what he sees as the proper principles of tax reform.

Osborne went back to Adam Smith, to find his four - efficiency, certainty, transparency and fairness. But instead of radical changes to the existing system, he opted for a new Office of Tax Simplification, whatever that might be, and yet another inquiry, under Geoffrey Howe, to look at long-term options for reform.

Howe, as Margaret Thatcher's first Chancellor, introduced a decisive shift towards more indirect taxes, by doubling VAT in his first Budget. But he also presided over an overall burden of tax, as a percentage of national output, which soared by 1984 to levels only now being tested by Labour under Gordon Brown.

Osborne did indicate that, if he could screw up the courage to do a Howe, he would cut the UK's rate of corporation tax. Alistair Darling is going to cut the main rate of tax on corporate profits from 30% to 28% from April. Darling's Tory shadow wants to go further.

Osborne calls the case for larger cuts compelling. "In the age of globalisation, 28% is too high," he told his audience.

"If British business is to compete effectively, then the rate of corporation tax needs to come down." But by how much and how quickly?

Osborne isn't saying. He admires what they've done in Ireland and the Netherlands and in newer EU states like Slovakia and Estonia.

He claims today's mobile flows of capital and labour can no longer be addressed by a tax system whose building blocks were largely designed for a much more closed economy where only tradeable goods crossed borders.

But he can't tell us what rate he wants to cut to - 20%?, or Ireland's 12.5%? - or when he'll kick-start the process.

"Given the constraints of the current budget deficit, a significant reduction in overall business taxation is simply and sadly unaffordable in the short term," he said on Friday.

"So for the moment the focus has to be on reducing the rates of corporation tax by broadening the base - in others words, by removing the reliefs and allowances which, in any case, create complexity and can lead to unexpected distortions."

The Tories are working with Big Four financial adviser PWC to put some flesh on the rather bleached bones. But anyone expecting a big cut in UK corporation tax if Cameron does lead the Tories to power should think again.

Osborne, as the FT observed on Saturday, is still pledging "to maintain spending".

Just as he fudged the Tory position on Northern Rock, promising a Bank of England-led reconstruction and insisting that didn't mean nationalisation, when what he really wanted to say was: Let's liquidate the whole thing now and be shot of it as soon as possible, the Shadow Chancellor is driven not by Adam Smith's defining principles but by what the polls and focus groups seem to be telling him.

If even Tory voters can't decide whether they want lower taxes of more public spending, the "Cameroons" aren't going to opt decisively for one over the other.

That's why they've come up with the rubric: We will share the proceeds of growth between tax cuts and higher spending.

It's never going to set the fiscal heather on fire. And it runs a big risk. If Brown and Darling could get their act together - another very big if - the voting public might find it very hard to differentiate the incumbent from young Tory pretenders.

Perhaps that's why this latest ICM poll shows the Tory lead at just three points. In the current climate, shouldn't Cameron and Osborne be doing an awful lot better than that?