HOW SOME TAX  REGIMES DISCRIMINATE AGAINST WOMEN IN SMALL SCALE BUSINESSES

Look at the picture carefully. This is Grace Kaitano, a 20-year old woman who sells doughnuts in Area 24, Lilongwe, Malawi. Grace is married and has a one-year old daughter, and also lives with her two younger sisters. When she makes the doughnuts, she sells them at Ngwenya Market, which is operated by Lilongwe City Council. Per day she is able to produce doughnuts worthy MK4,000, from raw materials such as baking flour, sugar, yeast, cooking oil and firewood worthy MK2,500. Whenever she goes to the market to sell her items, she pays a market fee of MK100 as a tax revenue to LCC for the market welfare. It means, in one year she pays LCC MK36,500.

On the other hand, other business operators who have big shops in the same market pay as little as MK7, 000 per year as business fee to the City Council, and exempt the daily MK100 fee. This is done through annual registration and subscription to LCC, and comes with a certificate of operation. It means Grace pays five times more than the medium business operators. Grace does not know this because she is not well informed about tax and revenue collection, and she does not know how to calculate the amount of money she pays the City Council. 

Worse still, the market she operates in lacks almost all services and infrastructure that a market should provide such as a toilet, running water, sheds for shelter and general sanitation services. As a woman, she takes her small child to her business and she is not able to wash her hands whenever she wants to feed or clean up the child. As if this is not enough, while Grace pays her fair share of tax to the government, some other multinational companies are dodging tax through unfair tax treaties and tax havens. This is causing the Government of Malawi fail to collect enough tax revenue to improve living standards of Malawians. Grace is paying her tax, and she needs justice in how other corporate businesses pay their tax, which affects her day to day operations.

Now look at the picture again, but this time remove Grace from the picture and put a man. Do you think this story would make the same sense? Let alone, would you really expect a man to operate such a business and pay a huge tax than a medium business operator? 

"Would lack of market facilities and sanitation affect men in the same way they affect Grace?"

What I am trying to say is that there is no justice in terms of how local assemblies in Malawi collect revenue from small business operators, not to mention how they use the collected revenue to provide services to the people. Nonetheless, small business operators who pay higher taxes need these services more than medium and multi-national business operators, who are able to include a toilet and running water in their big shops. It is evident that most small businesses are operated by women who are struggling every day to meet daily needs of their families. Most of these women pay as much tax than their businesses would earn as profits in one year.

Tax injustices subject women like Grace to extreme poverty. Grace lacks awareness and empowerment to realize and challenge such injustice respectively. She should be given a justification as to why she pays exorbitant tax and still be denied services and sanitation that LCC is obligated to provide. Like Grace, there are also many other Malawians who are living in perpetual poverty because of tax regimes that discriminate against women most than men. I urge all activists to start advocating for tax justice in our localities and help to protect rights of vulnerable and marginalized people like Grace.