Liberia: Experts Urge Lawmakers to Apply Gender Lens in Tax Reforms
Lawmakers and policymakers from other countries including Liberia have been urged to integrate a gendered lens into tax reforms to ensure that fiscal systems promote equity rather than deepen inequality. The call was made during a high-level panel session titled “Incorporating a Gendered Lens to Taxation,” held at an international policy dialogue on fiscal justice.
The session, moderated under the theme “Reimagining Tax Systems for Gender Equality,” featured a thought-provoking presentation by Dr. Lyla Latif of the University of Nairobi, who explained how traditional tax systems perpetuate gender inequality by undervaluing women’s work and rewarding activities dominated by men.
Dr. Latif asserted that most tax frameworks are structured to “see women the way men see women — not at all.” She explained that while men’s work often comes with tax-funded benefits and social protections, women’s contributions, particularly in domestic and unpaid care work, remain invisible in fiscal terms. “It is extraction without reciprocity,” she said. “Women’s unpaid labor sustains households and economies, yet tax systems continue to ignore its economic value.”
As economies shift toward digitalization, Dr. Latif warned that algorithmic and digital tax systems are reproducing the same gender inequalities in new forms. She explained that algorithms used by digital platforms often classify individuals based on their economic activity, creating structural disadvantages for women. “Even in the digital economy, where systems claim neutrality, they remain gender-biased,” she noted. “Professionals may benefit from tax breaks on business expenses, while domestic workers–mostly women–face tax traps without the same privileges.”
According to Dr. Latif, these inequities demand that parliamentarians and policymakers rethink fiscal laws to ensure they recognize and reward women’s contributions across all sectors of society. She proposed several guiding principles for reform, including universal economic recognition, substantive fiscal equality, and intersectional fiscal justice, all aimed at making taxation fairer and more inclusive.
The discussion that followed was robust and yielded several major recommendations for legislators and development actors. Participants emphasized the need for detailed gender-based fiscal data to effectively integrate gender perspectives into tax and budgetary decisions. They also stressed the importance of women’s leadership in policymaking, noting that the decline in women’s political representation in Africa undermines progress toward feminist tax reforms. The panel further urged African governments to move away from OECD-led tax regimes that marginalize their interests and instead support the UN Tax Convention to restore fairness and multilateral decision-making.
The session also called for a national dialogue on tax justice, emphasizing that many African tax laws are transposed from foreign models that fail to reflect local realities. One participant remarked that “we have never written our own tax laws; we have only transposed foreign ones,” adding that it is time to reconstruct fiscal systems to reflect national priorities and equity.
Panelists challenged parliamentarians to reflect on key questions, including whether gender-disaggregated data on taxation has been collected and how it is being used to shape equitable fiscal policies. They also questioned what measures are in place to increase women’s representation and influence in tax policymaking, why African countries continue to depend on OECD frameworks that silence their voices, and when nations will initiate national dialogues to reclaim ownership of their tax systems.
The session concluded with a call to action for African governments and legislators to mandate gender impact assessments for all tax and fiscal policies to ensure equity in revenue and expenditure decisions. Speakers also emphasized the need to enhance transparency in corporate taxation and beneficial ownership to curb illicit financial flows that drain public resources.
They called for the rejection of austerity-driven loan conditions that cut essential social spending, while advocating for financing models that sustain care economies. In addition, participants underscored the importance of institutionalizing gender-disaggregated data collection across all tax, budget, and expenditure systems, and investing in Africa-led research to produce independent data on taxation and domestic resource mobilization.
The session’s overarching message was clear: taxation is not gender neutral. Speakers agreed that without a deliberate feminist approach, fiscal policies risk reinforcing systemic inequality rather than dismantling it. “A just tax system must recognize the unpaid and undervalued labor of women, ensure transparency in corporate taxation, and place gender equality at the heart of fiscal governance,” the moderator concluded.
By Liberian Observer.
