Being a tax professor at a conference on women and poverty is a little bit like, well, being an expert on women and poverty at a conference on taxation. For one thing, there is the topic, which suggests a political approach not necessarily consistent with that with which one is familiar. For another thing, there is the sense that other lawyers look at tax experts the way everyone else looks at lawyers: about as interesting as plumbers, but without the self-confident charm. Additionally, there is the tax professor's fear that the more one tries to escape these contradictions the more deeply the contradictions will engulf him: poverty is a serious matter, and the nerdy cleverness of most tax scholarship is hardly likely to satisfy those who live in economic deprivation. Rather than being clever, then, I will simply discuss some current issues in tax policy as they relate to women, poverty, and the relationship between the two.

TAX SCHOLARSHIP AND THE SPACE FOR GENDER AND POVERTY ISSUES

Tax scholars see women and poverty through a very particular lens. On the one hand, the tax field has a long history of concern with distribution and “fairness” issues. The progressivity of the Code – that is, the imposition of higher tax rates on those with higher taxable incomes – is a major theme in tax scholarship and is often justified by reference to political philosophers and other nontax sources.