Taxes are sexist, here’s why

This is a characteristic of the French tax system: when a couple gets married or enters into a PACS, their taxes are obligatorily pooled. They are calculated from the marital quotient, in other words, the average of their income.

This mechanism acts differently from one situation to another. For 66% of French households, it does not change anything. For the rest, some lose, others gain.

For the winners, the marital quotient is all the more interesting as the incomes are important and unequal between the two members of the couple. This peculiarity maintains an outdated and discriminating family model, since it mainly benefits men.

Our video explanations.

Sources:

• “The joint taxation of married and PACS couples organizes a redistribution towards the wealthiest couples, the effects of which increased between 2012 and 2017”Mathias André, INSEE (2019).
• “The familialization of taxes and transfers, an issue for income tax and other public policies”Clement Carbonnier, Economics and Statistics (2021).
• “Taxation of couples and marital status – Simulation of three marital quotient reforms in France”Guillaume Allègre, Hélène Périvier and Muriel Pucci, OFCE (2021).
• “The choice to individualize your taxes for couples”Guillaume Allègre and Hélène Périvier, OFCE (2017).
• “The contribution of non-market domestic work to the material well-being of households: a quantification based on the TDS survey”, Delphine Roy, INSEE (2011).
• “Three out of four women earn less than their spouse”Thomas Morin, INSEE (2014).
• “Labour supply consequences of family taxation: Evidence from the Czech Republic”Klara Kaliskova (2014).