Calls for redistributive taxes, especially on the rich, are often countered by warnings of detrimental effects for economic growth. Although this equality-efficiency trade-off has a long tradition in political discourse, we know surprisingly little what beliefs individuals hold about the effects of redistributive taxation. This inhibits our understanding of individual preference formation as well as the distributive conflicts that unfold in response to the current Covid pandemic. In this paper, we study what people believe about the macroeconomic effects of different taxes and whether those beliefs force them to trade off equality against efficiency. In the midst of Germany’s 2021 national election, we fielded a pre-registered conjoint experiment asking a broad sample of respondents to evaluate in how far different tax packages contribute to equality and growth. We find little evidence for equality-efficiency trade-offs in individual beliefs about personal income and wealth taxation, but we do find that such trade-offs are present for corporate taxation. Furthermore, such beliefs do not vary by ideology or economic status. These findings put into question common wisdom about policy beliefs and point to the need of considering these beliefs more closely in studies on political preferences and public opinion.