Blooming of gender assessment tools for revenue administrations 

Over the past 15 years, several gender equality assessment tools have been developed for tax purposes. These toolkits, created by international organisations, aim at assessing the extent to which revenue administrations have integrated gender equality into their internal structure and work with taxpayers. These tools are based on each organisation’s definition of best practice of gender equality. 

For example,  

• In 2013, the World Customs Organisation launched its Gender Equality in Organisations Assessment Tool; 
• In 2019, Oxfam expanded its Fair Tax Monitor tool to include questions focusing on gender equality; 
• In 2021, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched the Gender Equality Seal for public institutions, now focusing on tax administrations and ministries of finance as part of its EQUANOMICS project; 
• In November 2024, the OECD published a gender balance maturity model for revenue administrations.  

A trend embedded in the gender and tax movement 

The relationship between taxpayers and revenue administrations - particularly the way the latter deliver services to taxpayers is a determining factor in ensuring that taxpayers of all genders experience tax systems equally.  

For example, it is important to consider the impact of factors such as language barriers, familiarity with digital tools, and access to official communication and tax and customs information. 

Despite the importance of tax administration functions, debates on gender equality in taxation have long focused only on tax design, overlooking the implementation of tax policy. Accounting for this is particularly important in lower-income countries where the majority of taxpayers operate in informal settings.  

This year, the Seville Compromiso of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development reflected this new interest in going beyond the study of tax policy design. The document emphasises the importance of promoting ‘gender-responsive taxation’ and supporting ‘methodologies and tools for designing, monitoring and evaluating […] tax policies with a gender perspective’.  

Likewise, it highlights the significance of gender assessment tools for revenue administrations within the international discourse.   

Attractive frameworks for development partners looking to mainstream gender 

Most of the development partners, including donors, international organisations, technical cooperation agencies, and NGOs, are committed to gender mainstreaming and must report on how they comply with Development Assistance Committee (DAC) gender targets. This commitment to gender mainstreaming in aid is also supported by the trend of feminist foreign policy which some countries have adopted. 

Capacity building and technical assistance in domestic resource mobilisation is a key area of investment for development partners, with revenue administrations acting as strategic partners in their development projects.  

The gender assessment tools developed by the international organisations mentioned above provide attractive frameworks for diagnosis and the development of gender action plans. These standard methods also allow for international and temporal comparisons, making development partners’ reporting jobs easier.  

Although technical assistance projects have been working on gender-responsive budgeting for years, the gender dimension of taxation has often been overlooked by development partners due to a lack of understanding of these issues and an absence of methodologies to address the topic. Gender assessment tools for revenue administrations address this shortcoming. 

An uncertain translation in lower-income countries  

Lower-income countries face urgent pressure to raise more revenue to finance their development, which puts pressure on their revenue administrations to collect more taxes. This is why these administrations’ mandates are often solely focused on revenue targets, with the notion of equity not being considered.  

In this context, how can gender assessment tools influence the practices of these administrations? 

Beyond the question of efficiency, these tools are also associated with ownership. Indeed, the revenue administrations of lower-income countries have not participated in the development of these gender assessment tools, which raises questions of legitimacy.  

Furthermore, the concept of gender and how to integrate gender equality is still difficult to understand for many public servants around the world. The concept of gender is sometimes difficult to translate into languages other than English, and gender inequalities manifest differently in different contexts, making the national translation of these standardised tools challenging. 

While gender diagnostic tools for revenue administrations remain an interesting way to mainstream gender in public finance, specific attention should be given to how lower-income countries can effectively implement these tools and how efficient they are in their own contexts. This is one of the questions I am exploring in my ongoing PhD project.