Joel Slemrod (Michigan; Google Scholar) introduced Two (Brief) Papers About Gender Fairness In The U.S. Earnings Tax at UCLA on Wednesday as a part of its Colloquium on Tax Coverage and Public Finance hosted by Kirk Stark and Jason Oh:

Who’s On (the 1040) First? Determinants and Penalties of Spouses’ Title Order on Joint Returns (with Emily Lin (Workplace of Tax Evaluation, U.S. Treasury Division), Evelyn Smith (Michigan) & Alexander Yuskavage (Workplace of Tax Evaluation, U.S. Treasury Division)): 

Married {couples} submitting a joint return put the male title first 88.1% of the time in tax 12 months 2020, down from 97.3% in 1996. The person’s title is extra more likely to go first the bigger is the fraction of the couple’s allocable earnings that goes to him, and the older is the couple. Based mostly on state averages, placing the person’s title first is strongly related to conservative spiritual attitudes, religiosity, and a survey-based measure of sexist attitudes. Threat-taking and tax noncompliance are each related to the person’s title going first.

For extra, see Wall Avenue Journal, Whose Title Goes First On Your Joint Tax Return? In all probability Not The Lady’s.

Group Fairness and Implicit Gender Discrimination within the U.S. Earnings Tax:

Single ladies face a considerably decrease tax price than single males, 6.3% versus 10.9%, largely attributable to their higher use of the earned earnings and baby tax credit. Among the distinction arises as a result of ladies have decrease earnings on common and the tax system is progressive, however that explains lower than half of the distinction. This gender tax disparity might be justified both by externalities generated by ladies’s increased common dedication to baby care or by effectivity arguments. Future analysis ought to deal with figuring out whether or not these results may justify the extent and nature of the gender tax price differential.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/03/slemrod-presents-two-papers-about-gender-equity-in-the-income-tax-at-ucla.html