Women, Taxes and Benefits: A Critique of Cuvillier's Proposals

Abstract

This comment examines proposals set out in this journal (Cuvillier, 1993) for taxing the imputed incomes of housewives in order to remove favourable treatment by the tax and benefit system which is an incentive to their remaining in the home. It briefly outlines Cuvillier's thesis and proposals and offers a critical assessment of the reforms she recommends. It finds that though the analysis of the problem is lucid and persuasive, the proposals are impracticable, unfair and largely irrelevant. It concludes that the distortions which affect women's choices about working outside the home are not implicit tax and benefit subsidies but obstacles: lack of affordable childcare and poverty traps in the tax and benefits systems.