Young, Claire --- "Taxing Times for Women: Feminism Confronts Tax Policy" [1999] SydLawRw 19; (1999) 21(3) Sydney Law Review 487
[*] Professor, Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia. Some of the material in this lecture is based on earlier work by the author, including Taxing Times for Women: Feminism Confronts Tax Policy in Krever R (ed), Tax Conversations: A Guide to the Key Issue in the Tax Reform Debate (1997). The Dunhill Madden Butler Visiting Chair in Women and the Law is sponsored by Dunhill Madden Butler and the Faculty of Law, University of Sydney. The author expresses her thanks to John Churchill, Managing Partner, Dunhill Madden Butler, Sydney and Jeremy Webber, Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney for their commitment to this Chair and their personal kindness to the author during her tenure in the Chair. The author also wishes to thank Susan Boyd and Reg Graycar for their comments on an earlier draft of this lecture and Dimity Kingsford Smith for her assistance with the material on the Australian superannuation system.
[1] Legislation enacting GST was passed on 30 June 1999.
[2] 1989 CanLII 2 (SCC); [1989] 1 SCR 143 at 165.
[3] Apps P, Tax Reform, Ideology and Gender, paper delivered at the F-LAW conference, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, 23 February, 1999 at 2.
[4] Brooks N, The Irrelevance of Conjugal Relationships in Head JG & Krever R (eds), Tax Units and the Tax Rate Scale (1996) at 72.
[5] See Alderman H, Unitary versus Collective Models of the Household: Is it Time to Shift the Burden of Proof? (1995) 10 World Bank Research Observer at 1. See also Neil Brooks, above n4.
[6] Stewart M, Domesticating Tax Reform (1999) 21 Syd LR at 443.
[7] Ontario Fair Tax Commission, Fair Taxation in a Changing World (1993) at 263.
[8] de Vaus D & Wolcott I (eds), Australian Family Profiles: Social and Demographic Profiles (1997) at 4.
[9] In Canada only 2 per cent of women are the primary earners in their relationships. See Crompton S & Geran L, Women as Main Wage-Earners (1995) 7(4) Perspectives on Labour and Income 26. In Australia, in couples with dependent children where both parents were employed, only 42 per cent of mothers were employed full time, id at 85.
[10] It should be noted that a progressive tax system does indirectly take imputed income in respect of household production into account because its potential effect is to tax the one income family more heavily than the two income family. Whether it does in fact remove the bias against working outside the home is dependent on a number of arbitrary factors, including the marginal tax rate of the one income earner and the split of income in the two earner family and there is no clear evidence that it does remove the bias for the majority of families. The perception is probably that it does not.
[11] See above n8 in Australia at 87, and in Canada, La Novara P, A Portrait of Families in Canada (1993) at Chart 5.1.
[12] Statistics Canada, Earnings of Men and Women in 1996 (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1997) at 10- 11, and Australian Bureau of Statistics, Womens Year Book (Canberra: AGPS, 1997) at 140.
[13] For example 38.7 per cent of unattached Canadian women under 65 live below the poverty line, and on average, their income is $6346 below the poverty line, National Council of Welfare, Poverty Profile 1995 (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1997) at 18, 52.
[14] For a full discussion of this issue in the Canadian context, see, Young CFL, (In)visible Inequalities: Women, Tax and Poverty (1995) 27 Ottawa LR 99 at 106.
[15] Statistics Canada, Women in Canada: A Statistical Report, (2nd ed), (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1990) at 27.
[16] Above, n8 at 100.
[17] Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, Womens Financial Futures: Mid-Life Prospects for a Secure Retirement (Ottawa: 1998).
[18] Sections 147.2(1) and (2) and section 149(1)(0.1) of the Canadian Income Tax Act RSC 1985, c1 (5th Supp).
[19] Department of Finance, Government of Canada Tax Expenditures, 1997 (Ottawa: Department of Finance, 1997) at 28.
[20] Ross S & Burgess P, Income Tax: A Critical Analysis, (2nd ed, 1996) at 144.
[21] Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Womens Yearbook (Canberra: AGPS, 1995).
[22] Statistics Canada, 1996 Census. The total female population for 1996 was 11 606 470 and of that number 4 801 720 did not participate in the paid labour force.
[23] Millbank J, Hey Girls, Have We Got a Super Deal for You: Reform of Superannuation and Matrimonial Property (1993) AJFL 104.
[24] Senate Committee on Superannuation, Seventeenth Report: Super and Broken Work Patterns (Canberra: AGPS, 1995) at 17.
[25] Ontario Fair Tax Commission, Fair Taxation in a Changing World (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993) at 263.
[26] Section 8(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth).
[27] Symes v The Queen [1994] 110 DLR (4th ed) 470.
[28] Id at 503.
[29] Above n20 at 143.
[30] This lecture was delivered prior to the amendments to the GST draft legislation that resulted from the agreement between the government and the Democrats which, among other measures, made basic groceries GST-free.
[31] Grattan M, One Million Worse Off Under the GST Sydney Morning Herald, (1 April 1999) at 5.
[32] Cleary P, Worse Off Under the GST: Report Defies Costello Sydney Morning Herald (7 April 1999) at 5.
[33] The classic Canadian example is that if, for example, one buys one doughnut, tax is payable but if one buys six or more, no tax is payable.
[34] Gittens R, Making a Meal of the GST, Sydney Morning Herald, (31 March, 1999) at 19.
[35] Bakan J, Just Words: Constitutional Rights and Social Wrongs (1997) at 910.