|
|
This distribution of the tax burden has a significant effect on social structures. On 30 May, a study (the chart above is included therein), was presented in the FEMM Committee of the European Parliament, which addresses the gender specific effects of tax systems. As many other policies, taxes are not gender neutral. Whilst there are nearly no taxes, that are directly discriminating against gender, based on existing social, cultural, economic and ecologic inequalities the exact structures affect women and men differently. Hence, the current systems result in a deepening of inequalities, which means that redistribution is only taking place from bottom to top but not vice versa. The high taxation of labour in contrast to the lower taxation of capital or wealth should have a growth promoting effect. In fact, however, according to the authors of the study, they make societies more unequal, and thereby put a barrier against economic growth. Lower taxation on wealth has a positive effect on those who are considerably wealthy. In Austria, as in other Member States of the EU, men own more wealth than women. Female single households in Austria have about 40 % less wealth than male ones. The decreasing progressive taxation of income also has a negative impact on women, but not on men; this is due to the fact that men - due to the persisting gender pay gap - are still earning more for the same and equivalent work. In some Member States, secondary earners, due to regulations such as income splitting, hence a combined calculation basis of income taxation at a married couple level ignoring income differences, face a higher tax burden, which acts as a barrier to seek employment in the first place. Here too, because of the unequal distribution of work in respect of care, housework and child care, women are over-proportionally affected. In turn, lower tax rates on capital and income from capital transactions are above all benefiting men. What is needed according to the study authors, is more transparency, more data and also more attention paid to existing inequalities, to ensure that redistribution from bottom to top can be transformed into fairer distribution from top to bottom.
|
