Tax Justice is a feminist issue: call on governments to act

We celebrate International Women’s Day today by reaffirming tax as a feminist issue. In advocating for greater tax transparency and accountability we, as feminists, are not only demanding multilateral progressive tax policies and a global financial architecture that recognises and disaggregates by gender, but a complete rethink of the orthodoxy; of what fair taxation policies should look like for greater rights and equality for women. Today we wholeheartedly join the Global Alliance for Tax Justice‘s call to governments for tax justice to advance women’s rights and economic equality, which we share here:

• Recognise tax as a feminist issue and raise domestic revenue to invest in the gender-responsive public services, social protections, and infrastructure required to fulfill the human rights of all women and achieve gender equality.

• Raise taxes through progressive and gender-just policies and practices, with emphasis on direct taxation of income, wealth, and high net worth individuals, and ensure that multinational corporations pay their share.

• Practice gender budgeting to ensure that tax revenues are raised and spent in ways that promote gender equality; reform tax laws so that they do not discriminate against women; and, uphold the right of all women to have an equal say in how public money is spent.

• Carry out tax impact assessments by gender to identify the direct and indirect effects of taxes, paying attention to the impacts of both taxes and public spending on the poorest women.

• Ensure that national and regional tax and financial secrecy policies neither contribute to large scale tax abuse nor reduce public resources available to realise women’s rights in other countries.

• End harmful tax practices, illicit financial flows and regressive reforms to the global tax system that facilitate tax avoidance and are biased towards wealthy countries, corporations, and the rich elite.

• Support the establishment of an inclusive intergovernmental UN Global Tax Commission where all countries have a seat at the table and equal say in determining international tax rules. The world will not be able to achieve women and girl’s rights, gender equality or the
Sustainable Development Goals without taking action for tax justice.

Your organisation is invited to sign on to the Bogota Declaration on Tax Justice for Women’s Rights via this link. You can sign up to it here, read more about it here and listen to me, Liz Nelson, Director of our Human Rights and Tax Justice programme on the issues: