We Can Create a Fair, Feminist Tax Code
(and can't we just hear the screaming!!!)
We Can Create a Fair, Feminist Tax Code
4/11/2023 by Amy Hanauer
Taxing wealthy people and corporations and using the revenue for paid leave, childcare, education, healthcare and college would transform America—especially for women and families.
The headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service on April 7, 2023, in Washington, D.C. The Treasury Department announced a $80 billion plan to focus on improving customer service and cracking down on tax evasion by corporations and the wealthy. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
Women do the brunt of uncompensated work that should be paid for by the government under a fair tax system. We’re more likely to care for young children or older family members, and face consequences to our own careers—like job loss—for doing that work. We also foot the bill to pay someone else when we can’t ourselves. Imagine if all families could instead count on high-quality childcare and eldercare and if the overwhelmingly female, often Black and brown workers who do these jobs, were paid what they’re worth.
When we have to juggle earning a good living with our family’s other needs, we’re more likely to shoulder the exhaustion and stress that balancing act creates. Lack of paid leave, for example, means women—particularly low-paid women and women of color—often must return to work before we and our babies are ready.
What does this have to do with fair taxes? Everything! Taxing wealthy people and corporations and using the revenue for paid leave, childcare, education, healthcare and college would transform America for girls and women of every race and family type, in every corner of this country. Our inequitable tax code asks too little of millionaires and billionaires—more than 86 percent of whom are men. Most billionaire wealth comes in the form of unrealized capital gains (think: big stock portfolios that grow every year) which are not taxed. So while Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or any of the other dozen richest people in the country—all men—aren’t taxed on their assets, nurses, teachers and flight attendants have taxes deducted every pay period. Corporate taxes are also too low, with 55 huge profitable corporations paying zero in one recent year. But the executives who benefit from low corporate taxes are—you guessed it—almost all men. A whopping 89.4 percent of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are men, as were 25 of the 26 largest S&P 500 CEOs in 2021.
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Leaders like Rep Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), working women like AFL-CIO president Liz Schuler and mothers across the country know how to create a feminist tax code. Their work elevates tax justice, now championed by so many from President Biden, to Wisconsin and Minnesota’s governors, to Massachusetts voters.
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Most importantly, once we’ve raised this revenue in smart, fair ways, use it on the essentials women and families need. Provide affordable or free childcare and preschool, as most European countries do. Allow paid parental leave as nearly every other wealthy country (and even most poor ones) do. Make it easier for girls (and their siblings) to afford college. And fund the schools, parks and libraries that give all of us a better world, every day. We can create a liberatory, joy-filled economy that works for women and their families. To get there, we have to start with fair taxes.
https://msmagazine.com/2023/04/11/tax-rich-wealthy-corporations-irs-women-workers-childcare-paid-leave/