Taxes Are a Woman's Issue : Reframing the Debate

A reader-friendly yet authoritative analysis of how U.S. tax policy affects - and often disadvantages - women.

Taxes determine the quality of our lives; they are responsible for the health of our environment, the safety of the roads we drive on, the condition of our public services, and the security of our homes and communities. For every woman who pays taxes and uses public services, and every man who cares about an effective and fair tax system, Taxes Are a Woman’s Issue dares to expose not only how tax policies shape the size of our bank accounts but also sculpt our government and the nation’s identity.

Whether you are rich, poor, a corporation or an individual, taxes provide the resources we need to sustain the nation’s civil, social, and economic life, and help support the basic welfare of all individuals and families. They also mirror the fundamental inequities that people of different races, classes, and gender experience when they try to access the opportunities that taxes provide. So when probed by the lens of women’s diverse experiences, tax policy narrates some of the ruthless realities of our economy and our society.

Authors Mimi Abramovitz and Sandra Morgen, writing for the National Council for Research on Women, convincingly dispel myths about the current welfare system and expose how the IRS-supported tax system was created in, and caters to, a time before women entered the work force. By honestly discussing the many ways the current tax system disadvantages women, Taxes Are a Woman’s Issue courageously teaches, as Linda Basch, the President of the Council, states, “about positive changes that will improve the lives of all women and therefore their families, their communities, and the nation as a whole.”