A tax system that sees us – A feminist vision

This series is for those who read “Do You Pay Your Taxes?” and wanted more. The voices in that article asked honest questions. Where does our money go? Why does the system feel rigged? Why do women bear the heaviest burden?

This series provides the answers, one layer at a time. Each piece examines a different dimension of tax justice through a feminist political economy lens. Together, they reveal the architecture of a system designed by the powerful, for the powerful. And they show what it takes to change it.

Some examples reappear across pieces. This is deliberate. Certain mechanisms—presumptive tax, the taxation of necessities, the unpaid care economy, the invisibility of informal workers—are so foundational that they deserve to be seen from multiple angles. Each time we return to them, we see another layer of how they operate.

This series focuses on women. Not because they are the only ones made invisible by the system, but because their exclusion exposes tax injustice most clearly. Men are also excluded, also unseen. And women are not a single story. The market trader, the rural farmer, the woman with a disability—each faces different barriers.

What is tax?

The conventional answer: a compulsory financial contribution to the state. This definition is narrow. It assumes that what matters is money. It ignores the massive non‑monetary contributions that sustain economies and societies.

This series has shown that tax systems are not neutral. They reveal which economic roles are valued and which are erased. They expose income gaps, unpaid care work, and the realities of informal labour. They collect from women in countless ways but refuse to count them as taxpayers.

To build a tax system that sees women, we must first redefine what tax is.

A feminist definition of tax

Tax is any compulsory contribution—in money, time, labour, or resources—that the state extracts to sustain itself, and that should confer rights, voice, and accountability.

Women make two kinds of invisible contributions:

1. Monetary taxes without recognition. Women in subsistence farming, the informal sector, and market trade pay through consumption taxes, market levies, user fees, and countless small payments. Their contributions are real and often heavier relative to their income. Yet they are not counted as taxpayers because they do not file returns. They are economic ghosts.

   
   

2. Non‑monetary taxes. Women perform the work of sustaining families and communities—work that the state has never adequately funded. This work is not voluntary. It is coerced by social norms and by the state’s failure to provide services. It has economic value. The state benefits directly by not having to pay for it.

If tax is only about money, these contributions are invisible. If tax is understood as any extracted contribution that should confer rights, then women are among the most significant taxpayers.

What care work looks like – and what the state owes

In African economies, care work is not a marginal activity. It is the foundation of social reproduction. Women perform this work daily, often for hours, without pay, without recognition, and without choice. The state collects a non‑monetary tax from them by default. Each type of care work corresponds to a service or infrastructure that the state should provide.

Each of these activities is a compulsory contribution of women’s time, energy, and resources. Each is a non‑monetary tax that the state collects by default. And each corresponds to a service or infrastructure that the state should provide.

A tax system that sees women would count these contributions. It would recognise that women have already paid—in care, in labour, in time. The state’s obligation is not to be grateful. It is to give back.

What a tax system that sees women would do

A just tax system would start from the recognition that women are already taxpayers—in money and in care. It would then be designed to:

1. Count and value care work as a contribution. 

   National accounts would include a care satellite account. Budgets would be assessed by how they reduce care burdens. Women’s care contributions would be treated as a form of tax that the state must repay through services and infrastructure.

2. Record all monetary payments against women’s names. 

   Market fees, VAT, presumptive tax, local levies—every payment would be linked to a woman’s identity. Her payment history would become proof of existence. When she needs a loan, she would have a record. When she reaches old age, she would have a contribution history.

3. Ask who can pay. 

   Progressive taxation: those with more ability pay more. Wealth taxes, corporate taxes, capital gains taxes. No VAT on essentials—food, cooking fuel, sanitary products, children’s clothing. Presumptive tax redesigned with bands that account for sectoral margins and actual ability to pay.

4. Return to women. 

   Every tax receipt could show what it funds: “Your contribution this month paid for three metres of road, one hour of a nurse’s salary, one textbook.” Participatory budgeting would let communities decide how local revenues are spent. The woman in Kampala could see: the road she pays for is the road she walks on.

   
   

5. Redistribute. 

   Universal healthcare funded by progressive taxation. Free education from primary through university. Social protection that reaches everyone in old age, disability, and crisis—not just formal workers. Infrastructure that reduces unpaid care work: water taps in every village, electricity in every home, transport that connects markets.

6. Be accountable. 

   Enforceable rights, safe tax administration, women’s presence in decision‑making. When a woman reports abuse by a tax official, she is protected. When a community demands accountability, it is heard.

What these dimensions mean

A tax system that sees women would expand:

• Choice – women decide how to earn, spend, and comply without coercion from regressive taxes or informal demands.

• Voice – women’s realities shape tax decisions; their presence reduces systemic bias and exclusion.

• Power – women participate in setting the rules and negotiating them, and can shield themselves from control, abuse, or retaliation.

• Resources – taxation translates into public value equitably between women and men.

• Safety – women engage with tax authorities without fear of harassment, extortion, or retaliation.

When these are absent, the system is not accountable. When they are present, taxation becomes a tool for collective wellbeing.

Imagine a girl born today

Her mother sells tomatoes in the market. Every payment her mother makes is recorded, linked to her identity, building her history. Her mother’s care work is counted in the national accounts, and public investment in water, energy, and childcare reduces its burden.

When the girl starts school, her classroom has textbooks, her teacher is paid, her lunch is provided—funded by taxes that ask more from those who have more. When she grows and starts her own business, she can access credit because her payment history proves her existence.

When she has children, there is childcare so she can work. When her mother ages, there is a pension because decades of market payments and care contributions were never invisible.

When she asks, “Where does our money go?” there is an answer. When she says, “This system is not fair,” there is a way to change it. When she organises with other women, the system responds.

This is not a distant ideal. Every element of this vision exists somewhere—in a country that removed VAT on pads, in a city that practices participatory budgeting, in a pension scheme that reached informal workers, in a digital ID that recorded market payments.

The pieces exist. The question is whether we will assemble them.

The tax system that sees us is not a gift. It is a demand.

The woman in Kampala does not need a better calculator. She needs a seat.

The question is whether we will help her take it.

The next article asks what it means to bear witness to injustice—and what celebration requires when so much remains undone.

Note: This series is now being developed into a book, The Economic Ghost: Tax Is Not Math. It Is Power, which expands and deepens the analysis. For more, see [link].