The American Tax Policy Institute hosts a gender and tax symposium today and tomorrow: It’s a Man’s World: Revealing and Addressing Hidden Gender Bias in Tax Law and Policy:

Thursday, October 17 

4:30 PM: Academic Roundtable 

• Irina Ewing (IRS), The Price of Inequality: The Impact of U.S. Tax Policy on Gender Economic Disparities
  • Commentator: Phyllis Taite (Oklahoma)
• Ashley R. Hilliard (North Carolina Central), Unattached and Taxed
  • Commentator: Emily Satterthwaite (Georgetown; Google Scholar)
• Diane Kemker (Pepperdine, LMU; Google Scholar), Exploring the Co-Constitutive Nature of Gender and Disability Through the Hidden Sexism and Ableism in the Medical Expense Deduction
  • Commentator: Tessa Davis (South Carolina; Google Scholar)
• Lauren Shores Pelikan (Missouri-Columbia), Tax Reform to Solve the Childcare Crisis in Two Parts: Affordability and Availability
  • Commentator: Michelle Drumbl (Washington & Lee)
• Natasha Varyani (Roger Williams), Finding Her Place: A Comparative Analysis of Incentive Opportunities in Preferential Rates of Municipal Tax in India and the United States
  • Commentator: Jennifer Bird-Pollan (Wayne State; Google Scholar)

Friday, October 18 

Panel I: Marriage, Inequality, and the Tax Code

The decision to marry is more than just a personal decision. In addition to having wide-ranging social, economic, and other consequences, marriage is an important status that determines eligibility for certain tax benefits and preferences under U.S. law. Why is this the case? Should the tax law privilege marriage over other types of human relationships? Across the category of eligible “married” taxpayers, does the tax law treat all couples equally under the law? How do identity axes such as race, gender identity, and sexual orientation complicate conversations about the tax treatment of married couples and different families? What do taxpayers even understand about the tax benefits of marriage, especially joint return filing? How does the tax system take into account non-harmonious families, including those that have experienced abuse, domestic violence, or intimate partner violence?

• Lee-ford Tritt (Florida) (moderator)
• Sophie Mirzaian (Debevoise & Plimpton LLP) (commentator)
• James Alm (Tulane; Google Scholar), J. Sebastián Leguizamón (Western Kentucky; Google Scholar) & Susane Leguizamón (Western Kentucky; Google Scholar), Race, Marriage, and the EITC in the Post-Pandemic Age
• Leslie Book (Villanova; Google Scholar), Ann Kayis-Kumar (New South Wales; Google Scholar) & Christine Speidel (Villanova; Google Scholar), Squeezing Blood From Stones
• Anthony C. Infanti (Pittsburgh; Google Scholar), Ten Years After Windsor: The Tax Inequalities of Marriage Equality
• Emily Satterthwaite (Georgetown; Google Scholar) & Erin Scharff (Arizona State), Awareness of and Attitudes Towards Joint Tax Filing  

Panel II: Bodies, Voices, and Choices: Our (Tax) Selves

Examining who and what is taxed and how tax laws are made reveals much about a society’s structure and values. What is known about tax-related legislative hearings in the United States Congress? Whose voices are showcased, and whose are absent? How does tax law contribute to understanding what work, bodies, and activities have “value” in society? What are the potential advantages (as well as disadvantages) of secondary earner deductions or credits in managing the main tax policy trade-offs? How can one understand tax preferences for certain nonprofit organizations, including those that discriminate on the basis of race or gender? How might considering the intersection of tax law and human rights reshape thinking about structural inequality?

• Benjamin Leff (American; Google Scholar) (moderator & commentator)
• Erin McKinney (Amazon Web Services) (commentator)
• Caroline Bruckner (American; Google Scholar) & Colin Coil (Vermont), Overlooked & Undervalued: An Investigation of Women’s Engagement in Congressional Tax Hearings
• Tessa Davis (South Carolina; Google Scholar), Is There a Gendered Body in Tax?
• Daniel N. Shaviro (NYU; Google Scholar), Singles, Couples, and Secondary Earner Deductions
• Elaine Waterhouse Wilson (West Virginia; Google Scholar), Revisiting Bob Jones University in an Era of Expansive Free Exercise

Panel III: Tax and Gendered Care Work

Despite strides toward gender equality, girls and women in many countries spend substantially more time than men do on unpaid care activities, including childcare, eldercare, and household chores. Which taxpayers benefit and which are overlooked by the tax law’s current treatment of care work? What types of care work are treated as tax-preferred? How might the tax system better account for the value of care work? How do rules around tax reporting and administration support or complicate care work, including childrearing, and the tax system’s measurement of income and economic benefits? How flexibly do tax rules account for variations in family configurations, including families with children who have non-cohabitating parents?

• Elaine Maag (U.S. Treasury, Urban Institute; Google Scholar) (moderator & commentator)
• Julie Divola (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, American Tax Policy Institute President) (commentator)
• Michelle Drumbl (Washington & Lee), Custody, Co-Parenting, Cohabiting: Refundable Tax Credit Design Challenges
• Nyamagaga Gondwe (Wisconsin; Google Scholar), Women in the Household: Unpacking the "Imputed Income" Account of Domestic Labor
• Amy Matsui (National Women’s Law Center) & Amy Royce (National Women’s Law Center), Advancing Gender and Racial Justice by Supporting Caregiving Through the Tax Code

Luncheon Address 

• Alice G. Abreu (Temple), Perspectives from the Section Chair

Panel IV: Unintended Consequences, Unexpected Tools: Dismantling Structural Inequalities in the Tax System

In one crucial respect, lawmakers are like the rest of us: No one can predict the future. At the same time, scholars and policymakers often find themselves scratching their heads and wondering whether tax reformers have considered the consequences of their decisions beyond scoring political points with their constituents. What are some of the recent statutory or judicial developments that appear to have been aimed at tax simplification but have led to disincentives for so-called “secondary” earners (who tend to be women) or have exacerbated income and wealth inequality along racialized-gendered lines? How do the tax laws preserve and bolster retirement policies that fail to benefit the working poor? How can existing tax (and other) rules, such as those applicable to retirement plans and social security, be harnessed to improve overall social well-being, especially that of girls, women, and all minoritized and marginalized people?

• Anthony Infanti (Pittsburgh; Google Scholar) (moderator & commentator)
• Alice Thomas (Howard) (commentator)
• Jennifer Bird-Pollan (Wayne State; Google Scholar), The State and Local Tax Deduction Cap and its (Unintended?) Sexist Consequences
• Richard L. Kaplan (Illinois; Google Scholar), Gender Discrimination in Retirement Plan Distributions
• Goldburn P. Maynard, Jr. (Indiana-Kelley; Google Scholar), Minority Women and the Retirement Bait and Switch
• Kathryn L. Moore (Kentucky), Gender Disparity in Social Security 

Panel V: Women, Financial Precarity, and Taxation

In the United States, women are more likely than men to live in poverty. They are also more likely than men to be among the working poor. How, if at all, does the tax law account for the gendered nature of poverty? How do certain tax benefits, like the work opportunity credit, impact low-income and precarious jobs, sectors in which women are overrepresented? Why does the tax law privilege certain types of (unearned) income over others? Who benefits from those rules? What vulnerabilities are faced by mothers, especially single mothers who are jailed or detained, in accessing certain family-related tax benefits? Who benefits and who suffers when governments provide or deny tax benefits to large corporations that employ a disproportionate number of women in low-wage positions?

• Katherine Pratt (Loyola-L.A.; Google Scholar) (moderator & commentator)
• Olivia Daniels (Debevoise & Plimpton LLP) (commentator)
• Stephanie Hunter McMahon (Cincinnati), Work Opportunity Credits: Ineffective for Men But Horrible for Everyone Else
• Ann Murphy (Gonzaga), Gold-Plated Tax Benefits: Capital Gains Preference Fails to Aid Women and Persons of Color
• Kerry Ryan (St. Louis), Mothers in Jail: A Taxing Issue
• Carla Spivack (Albany), Pay Less; Smile More: Big Box Stores and the Subsidized Workforce

Panel VI: Tax Design, Administration and Policy: What Gender Neutrality Has to Do With It

The laws of the United States and most other countries make no formal distinctions between the tax obligations of “men” and “women.” The United States Internal Revenue Code uses highly gendered language (with “he” and “him” being the taxpayer and “she” and “her” being the taxpayer’s spouse). Still, the law applies without regard to sex or gender identity. Notwithstanding gender neutrality, are some tax rules, practices, and policies more beneficial for men than women? What lessons might U.S. lawmakers draw from the examples of other countries? How is it even possible to identify areas of the tax law’s disproportionate impact on the basis of identity axes, such as gender identity, sexual preference, and race, unless this data is gathered and reported by the government? Can tax law and policy be used to remediate the gendered aspects of wealth inequality? What would true “gender neutrality” in the tax law look like, anyway, and is that desirable?

• Roberta Mann (Oregon) (moderator & commentator)
• Eric Solomon (Ivins, Phillips Barker Chartered) (commentator)
• Yvette Lind (BI Norwegian Business School, Edinburgh; Google Scholar) & James Alm (Tulane; Google Scholar), Is a Gender-Neutral Income Tax Feasible or Desirable?
• Phyllis Taite (Oklahoma), Tax Policy in a Space of Uncertainty
• Cristina Trenta (Linnaeus), A Gender-Based Inquiry of the EU VAT System

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