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Eliminating The Secondary Earner Bias: Lessons From Malaysia, The United Kingdom, And Ireland, Tonya Major Gauff

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Student Comment explores the long-standing gender bias inherent in the United States Internal Revenue Code ("IRC"). Specifically, this Comment discusses the bias of the taxing code against secondary earners in dual-income families. Under the IRC, primary earners in a dual-income household are taxed at a much lower rate than secondary earners in the household. As women have historically suffered from lower wages and income than their husbands, the effect of the IRC is to tax married women at much higher rates than married men. Indeed, the average working married woman loses over two-thirds of her pay to income taxes. …