A feminist tax justice handbook for women in the informal economy

This Handbook has been developed by Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) with support from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) for a woman, working in the informal economy within an urban centre in Uganda. The handbook aims to equip such a woman, who is aware of the injustices that affect her life but who has limited access to information that would allow her to properly understand the causes of those injustices and to actively oppose them, and to educate her peers to do the same.

Tax is also a women’s rights issue because tax laws, policies and systems impact women’s lives. They affect women’s access to property, incomes and public services, and transmit gendered social expectations and stereotypes within societies and across borders.

By increasing or decreasing taxes on particular things, a government can make essential goods and services cheaper or more expensive for citizens to buy. And by deciding how to tax the things we buy or the money we earn, a tax system can affect different people in very different ways. The current tax system in many countries, especially in poorer countries like Uganda, is unfair to poorer people, minorities and women. But how are they unfair? What do they do, and how can these things be done better?

In this handbook we will explore the idea of Feminist Tax Reform. We will start by examining how tax works, and what feminism actually is. Then we will explore feminist thoughts about tax justice, and then we will offer some suggestions for how you, the reader, can bring some of these ideas into your daily life, and to join us in advocating for a tax system that is fairer to all of its stakeholders.