Tampon Tax
Women go to court
Five women are challenging New York's sales tax on feminine hygiene products. Like most states, New York charges a base sales tax rate and then exempts certain products, such as unprepared food, from it. The class action lawsuit claims that it's discriminatory not to include tampons and sanitary napkins on the exemption list.
"New York already exempts a whole long list of medical necessities. Everything from bandages and gauze to Rogaine, dandruff shampoo, and Chapstick," the plaintiffs' attorney, Zoe Salzman, told the Associated Press. "There's no question in my mind or in anyone's mind that if men had to use these products every month, they would already be tax exempt."
Salzman doesn't mention it, but the state also exempts many things that aren't medical necessities, such as shoe shining, newspapers, and wine sold at wine tastings. There are even partial exemptions for tickets to amusement parks and musical performances.
Forty states charge sales tax on feminine hygiene products. (Five of the remaining 10 exempt these products from their sales tax, while the others do not have a sales tax at all.) According to the New York Daily News, New York brings in $14 million annually from the tax on tampon and sanitary napkin sales.
This article originally appeared in print under the headline "Tampon Tax."
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Well, women sanitary products must be included in that exemption list of taxation. On the one had these authorities favour upliftment of female community and on the other hand not including pads and menstrual cups in the list of non-taxation products. This is rightly a double-standard approach. Authority must exclude women menstrual products such as pads, tampons and cup menstruelle which are highly recommended by medical experts to be used in periods by women. This has certainly hurt women sentiments accross NYC.