The National Council for Research on Women (NCRW) has released a book outlining how the tax system affects women. According to the NCRW, Taxes ARE A Women’s Issue: Reframing the Debate “demonstrates how women benefit from services paid for by taxes- but also how they are adversely affected by the ways in which taxes are currently collected.”
Written by Mimi Abramovitz, of Hunter College School of Social Work and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and Sandra Morgen, of the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon, the report acknowledges that there is no quick fix for the inequities of the tax system. However, the authors state that it is imperative to work toward a solution that would involve all taxpayers in “creating a safe, just, and economically sound nation.”
A number of factors, including lower wages than men and more unpaid labor, mean that recent tax policies have had a harmful effect on many women, who make up “63 percent of the lowest one-fifth on the income scale but only 41 percent of those in the highest fifth,” notes Dr. Morgen. NCRW President Linda Basch stated, “We need an equitable tax system and one that is based on the realities and not the myths of women’s lives.”
LEARN MORE about the report, or preorder copies, at the National Council for Research on Women
