Equality and the Taxable Unit in Income Tax

For a long time, married women were treated differently from married men in personal income tax acts (PITA’s) around the world. The Netherlands was no exception to this rule. The PITA reflected the political, religious and legal situation, but at the same time was often behind on developments in those areas. The current Dutch semi-individual tax system in which single earner families pay more tax than double earner families is criticized by some Christian politicians and media. Furthermore, several academics suggested the introduction of a family taxation with a splitting system such as exists in Germany and - in a way- in the USA to reduce the tax burden of single income earners. In such system the spouse with low income in a dual income earner family would pay significantly more tax. As most Dutch women work part-time and earn less than their partner and taking into account price-elasticities, this compensation of single income earning families would be a disincentive for married women to work and gain economic independence. To put these proposals in perspective, this paper analyses the history of the tax treatment of married women and relates this to the Dutch political, religious and legal situation and places it in an international perspective. The chapter was written as a paper presented at the 14th Greit conference which was organised in June 2019 in Lund.