January 19, 2021
If it’s Tuesday, January 19, 2021, the 66th Wyoming Legislature must be getting its committee meetings underway. As part of the Gender Lens Project, we wanted to bring to your attention the Tampon Tax.
SF0027 Essential health product dignity act: AN ACT relating to sales and use taxes; establishing a tax exemption for feminine hygiene products and diapers; and providing for an effective date.
This bill is scheduled for Senate Revenue Committee on Tuesday, January 19. The committee meeting begins at 1:30.
This bill would repeal the sales tax on period products, often called the Tampon Tax. What is the Tampon Tax and why does menstrual equity matter?
- Period poverty—or inadequate access to hygiene products—is real and impacts women and girls across Wyoming. It keeps girls out of school and women out of work. Repealing the Tampon Tax and achieving menstrual equity has positive educational, economic, and community benefits.
- Wyoming is one of 30 states that still taxes period products.
- Recently, other nations — led by Scotland — have made the move to make period products free to all women.
- A current court case in Michigan challenges the constitutionality of taxing period products and asserts that the Tampon Tax is discriminatory.
- The FFCRA (the first coronavirus relief bill) lists period products as “medically necessary” and, therefore, eligible for FSA/HSA spending.
- Though Wyoming is in dire fiscal straights and needs to reform its structural deficit with new revenue, maintaining a discriminatory tax is not a solution.
Want to dig even deeper?
Bridget Crawford has you covered with her legal research “Period Poverty in a Pandemic: Harnessing Law to Achieve Menstrual Equity” here and “The Unconstitutional Tampon Tax” here.
The ACLU has a toolkit for you.
And check out Teton County’s Period Project, the national legal work of Period Equity, and Tax Free. Period.
Testify Tuesday to repeal the Tampon Tax!
Not up for testifying live? You can always email the members of the Senate Revenue Committee and ask them to support the bill. Their email addresses are linked below. Need more resources? Check out these tips for contacting legislators.
Gender Lens side-note: Yep. Four fifths of the committee discussing the tampon tax are men.