Women To Pay Less Tax?

Economics professors Alberto Alesina from Harvard and Andrea Ichino from the University of Bologna, say women should pay less tax than men. They have explained it in their paper, 'Gender Based Taxation'.

Their argument boils down to this: the supply of labour of women is more responsive to their wage post-tax, so a reduction in taxes would increase the labour participation of women substantially. Doing that, they reckon, would have the same impact as affirmative action policies, quotas or subsidised childcare.

A few problems with this proposal;

i) If capitalists really are crazed, profit-obsessed evil bastards, then why don't they simply hire women not men. As the gender gap shows that women are only paid 69% of men ten years after graduation, surely capitalists should sack all their men, replace them with women and at a stroke knock 31% off their wage bill.

ii) Is this not incredibly sexist, implying that women need a helping hand?

iii) What about men who choose to stay at home and rear their children. Shouldn't they too be entitled to a tax break?

iv) Would this not cause some, err, resentment in the workplace?

via fleeced