6 - Tax policy applied

Summary

Although this chapter follows on from the broad, theoretical boundaries of Chapter 5, and proceeds with analysis of women, tax policy and families, it does so with a focus that is specific to the UK. Chapter 2 of this book addressed the theoretical underpinnings of the issue of tax policy, and the challenges that may be associated with defining it. This set the foundations for Chapter 3, and its analysis of gender budgeting as an example of ‘tax policy in action’. The premise of gender budgeting is that tax policy, as embodied in the Budget, impacts upon women; and, thus, it is necessary to discern the details of this (economic) impact. Gender budgeting will produce these details, and it will be necessary to make sense of them; this argument, eventually, led to Chapter 5's interaction with ‘tax policy theorised’, and its analyses of the contributions of (dynamic(al)) systems theory (specifically, on the question of tax complexity) and, more generally, critical tax theory on the questions surrounding women, tax policy and the law. This analysis was preceded, however, by Chapter 4's consideration of the contribution of the corporate social responsibility movement to this book's project. This chapter acknowledged that the diffusion of power does not end at the boundaries of government. The corporate social responsibility movement is in many ways an answer to creative compliance; it is an attempt to hold businesses accountable to more than their shareholders, and to investigate the potential benefit from engaged and aware corporate practices to a wider, stakeholder society.