Discussion: Utah Weighs Dropping Tax On Feminine Hygiene Products

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Discussion for article #245837

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Trust me, this will never make it out of committee. The boys on hill wouldn’t want to touch something so icky. They can’t even handle breast-feeding.

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Actually, there’s a bill in front of the legislature this year to make it easier for women to breast feed at work. A Republican who is opposed to the measure says that if it were to become law, we’d have women bringing infants into coal mines.

Yeah. He said that.

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To discuss the impact this tax elimination would have on the budget is legitimate in terms of whether or not to increase the sales tax in general. To discuss its impact on the budget in terms of whether it is appropriate and justified is bullshit.

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I say its a good idea to eliminate this tax as it is a necessity in daily life for most women. If they’re worried about revenues, add the tax to some other thing like raising fees on hunting licenses or some type of optional expense by the taxpayer. Its really not all that difficult to not to be a bunch of backwards thinking pricks who want to make women pay more for their routine biological needs…but then again, this is Utah. I say they ought to get rid of the medical device tax too in the ACA if they can find a different revenue stream to make up the difference, which of course they could do if the Republicans weren’t trying so hard to constantly play politics with the ACA since day one of its implementation. But again, most Republicans would rather make an issue of it rather than solve a problem.

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Another example of if men had periods, this would not even be up for discussion. And I say that as a man.

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I hate to say it but $1 million is really chump change in a State budget. Republican Governors and legislatures are notorious for all kinds of give-aways to big business interests and the like, that go well beyond that kind of money in tax deferrals and abatements. If we were talking about a local municipality’s budget, I could see $1 million being a bigger problem but that’s not what’s going on here. This just looks like your typical excuse-making for not taking action.

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To summarize the options:

  1. eliminate state sales tax on feminine hygiene products,
  2. decrease the existing tax rate on them,
  3. increase the existing tax rate on them,
  4. call them something else for sales tax purposes,
  5. create a new barrier, hoop or hurdle making it more difficult for women to get feminine hygiene products,
  6. require a prescription for FHPs,
  7. somehow work in ultrasound &/or vaginal probing, and
  8. outlaw feminine hygiene products entirely, enforceable by the death penalty, so either way …

With an all-male state legislature committee in Utah, my money’s on #8.

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Woman here. This is what we are spending resources on? This seems fairly inconsequential…

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He meant, of course, infants who aren’t even pulling their weight by working a shift.

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We have a few states who rely on the sales tax and don’t levy income taxes. I’d like to see a state do the opposite : cancel the sales tax and make up the revenue with income taxes. Like a natural experiment. I think it’d be better for the residents and the government would function better too.

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But what about a company’s Rights to deny benefits to women?

After all, tampons just encourage women to have non-procreative sex.

Sheesh, and Utah of all places is the traitor to the Right-wing causes?!?

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Male here. Not sure I’m following you. “Resources”? Please enlighten.
In any case I fail to see why women should be 1) paid less for equal work and then on top of that be 2) taxed for their biological needs.
Seems pretty consequential to me, just as a matter of elementary fairness. And there are families and single women where even $30 per year can make a difference between putting food on the table some evenings and doing without…

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Because right now I’d like to see them spend their time and taxpayer money on issues like breastfeeding, equal pay, paid family leave, gender discrimination and not whether they are going to charge me an extra $.35 for my monthly hygiene needs. It’s not like it’s a premium tax levied against women. Would it be nice for these items to be tax free? Sure, but really? This is not a pressing feminine issue.

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I’m sure we all would like that. Sales taxes are inherently regressive, and as such to be fought at every turn. I think you’ll find that most states without income taxes are backward and conservative. But I’m repeating myself.

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Thanks for the clarification, Allie. Seems to me that fairness is always important but totally agree the issues you mention are more urgent.
Still, if one can chip away at discrimination in any area at all it’s a good thing, no?

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Not really. I want to avoid allowing politicians to use something that’s fairly meaningless as a ‘show me’ when people say, what are you doing to combat gender discrimination?

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So men , who don’t use tampons , are only the ones that are going to vote on this tax . I presume they are all Repubs and if so it will be continuing the War on Women . Riiiight .

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Fair enough, and I admit I hadn’t considered it from that standpoint, sure to be deployed by some. But gender discrimination isn’t the only thing at stake here. Taxing incontinence aids is grossly unfair as well, particularly to the elderly who can least afford them. Although not incontinent myself, I am a prostate cancer survivor and it burns me that such necessities are taxed when to make up the lost revenue legislators could easily add a penny or even less to taxes on luxury goods, firearms and ammo, soft drinks, alcohol, tobacco, you name it. To my way of thinking, fairness is worth fighting for, always.

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It’s “inconsequential” in terms of the fact that the Utah Righteouslature is discussing this issue while refusing, YET AGAIN, to talk about expanding Medicaid.

They’re also refusing to discuss adequately funding the school system, and they’re monkeying around with several different medical marijuana bills that aren’t likely to pass because The Church is opposed to that sort of thing, but not opposed to ill people loading up on opioids.

Plus everything that AllieBean mentioned above.

In short, people aren’t being adequately educated and people are dying, but they’re spending their time talking about taxing tampons. Don’t get me wrong; I’m sympathetic to that cause, but it’s hardly the most important thing they could be discussing on Capitol Hill right now.