Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Classics: Women, Taxes and Tariffs

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SMNTY Classics: Women, Taxes and Tariffs · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny Anne Smitha. I'm not good stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told you product, I heard you, And today
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: we're bringing back a classic because I'm mad about things,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: very personal things. But it's about taxes and tariffs because
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: it seems I once again have messed up with the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: RS and it's just a real headache, I have to say,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and I'm very frustrated by the whole situation. But on
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: top of that, there's been a lot of news coming
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: out about these tariffs just completely backfiring and being reversed
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and really harming the US economy as a lot of
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: people said it would. So huh, you know, I thought
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: we would bring this one back. Yes, please enjoy this
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: classic episode. Hey, this is Anny and Smantha and what
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: my stuff. I've never told you production if I heard you.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: And today is April seventeenth, twenty twenty five as we
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: record this, which means we just passed tax Day in
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the United States. Taxes are so stressful, they are I
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: hate doing them. I feel like I have to just
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: focus so hard, get out my dictionary. I feel like
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I'm being tricked, Like, okay, you're telling me that I
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: just don't think I have this, But you're telling me
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I do. It's just a mess. How was it for
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: you this year, Samantha?
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: So I started in really early because what we usually
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: get for our job in general went down significantly. That
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: made me have a panic moment, and I knew with
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: everything happening with the new administration that I wanted to
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: get it done as soon as possible with all the
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: When I got all the documents, and I don't have
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: as much as many other people say, so we only
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: have one sucainct job I do, and then like a
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: house and a few other things, and the forms come
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: in pretty quickly, like the first month. So as soon
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: as I got them all, I went in immediately because
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I was like, nope, nope, y'all, y'all can't trick me.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: You can't trick me. So it was pretty seamless and
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I got everything back pretty quickly soon after I turned
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: everything in as well as started. I think a federal
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: was really fast this year for me. All the headlines
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: started popping up about all the changes that could be coming,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, nope, I got done.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Don't you can't get me.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: So I felt a little like proud of myself for
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: trying to get this out the way. Well, i'd say
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: all about and braggy form.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Sorry, y'all, No, that's all right. Taxes I usually try
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: to get them done early, but I feel like I'm
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: always missing one form yeah, which sometimes is true and
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: sometimes isn't. But this year I told you I mistakenly
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: misremembered when we recorded the audio book and tried to
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: log that in into my dad and it was like no,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: no, no no. And that's when I had a wake up call.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, wow, time has really ceased to
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: matter to me. I haven't gotten anything back yet, so
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: we'll see, we'll see. And famously I have been famously
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: to be I have been audited so very paranoid, very
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: very paranoid. But today we thought we would do kind
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: of an overview of some issues with women in taxes
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: and then women in tariffs, which is a big conversation
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: happening in the US right now. I would love if
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: people from other countries would write in about how taxes
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: work in your country. I'm just curious. But yes, you
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: can see our past episodes on the Pink tax and
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: also I would say our Marriage and People with Disabilities
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: episode where we talked about that, but all right, starting
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: with taxes. Tax Day was a couple of days ago,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: as we record this, and I wanted to look to
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: see if there were any issues around sexism and taxes,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and of course the answer is yes, of course it is.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: One of the main things I found was joint filing
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: with the spouse in the US often results in women
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: getting taxed at a higher rate in a heteronormative sense.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: This is because these rules were designed when women largely
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: stayed at home while men worked, and were largely designed
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: to spare white men some tax money. Now that women
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: often work along with their partner, this can mean that
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: women are getting taxed more highly, and it has to
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: do with the gender pay gap a bunch of other things,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: but that is one of the main reasons. While partners
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: can file their taxes separately, only seven percent due this
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: leads some women to decide to quit their jobs and
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: focus on childcare to save money, which, as we always say,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: you know, if you want to stay at home and
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: take care of children, that's fantastic. That is not a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: lesser choice, but it should be a choice, not something
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: that you're forced into. Studies have found that reworking the
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: whole thing. Are getting rid of this sort of joint
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: filing system that we have right now altogether would increase
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: married women's participation in the workforce. Most other countries have
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: abandoned this system, by the way, But all right, there
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: is a lot of history behind this. For a long
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: time in the US, women were considered second class citizens
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: and married women were required to file under their husband's name.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: In the nineties, activists did try to amend this whole
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: thing or get rid of it, but conservatives claimed it
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: was essentially an attack on women being homemakers and traditional marriage,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: so they were like, no way.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Interestingly, according to miss magazine, single women are hit
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: hard too. Here's a quote quote. The tax code has
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: been designed to favor married couples, as former Department of
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: the Treasury tax attorney Lily King concluded in a paper
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: on the lack of fairness within our system. She writes,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: a single person never pays less relative to a couple,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: whether married or unmarried, with the same amount of income
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: as a single person.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Studies fine, black folks and gay folks are penalized too,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: for largely systemic reasons. I guess I should put here.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I think it's obvious, but we're not tax experts, so
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: you can there have been, there has been a lot
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: written about this, and you can look into it if
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: you would like, but for now we're just doing kind
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: of an overview. I will say, my dad used to
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: do my taxes, and it did feel at the time
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: like he was the man who understood it and I
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: could never get it, you know. And I don't think
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: he was projecting that to me necessarily, but that's what
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I was kind of picking up. And also I don't
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: blame him, but it was the tax return he turned
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: in that got me audited.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Oh really, And I don't think I knew. I thought
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: you had actually had a technology count.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: No, but I think that the penalty should have been
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: very minor. But I moved, and I think I missed
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: the notification and it just builds up if you don't
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: know you got it, And so it should have been
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: a minor like he missed it one thing, he did
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: one thing incorrectly. It should have been like a two
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars fee. It got a lot higher than that.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: So this is a question I have in which even
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: not before this administration, but like all of the departments,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: especially like things like the tax IRS and such, it's
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: impossible to get to them and you can never figure
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: out how to contest anything. And everything comes through mail,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: that is, and if you don't get it, it literally
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: just gets sit back and that's it. And then you
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: get lives for that. That seems absurd.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: It feels like a setup.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: It is, and now they're firing more of the IRS people.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Of course, when I finally got to an IRS person
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: when I was being audited, she was crying and I
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: was like, oh God, it's gonna be okay. Meanwhile, I'm thinking,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: look at this fee. This is ridiculous. It was a
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: very ridiculous fee. It was horrible. I cried every time
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I got a message from the RS, and essentially it
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: was from like one little error and me moving and
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: not getting a message, and it was pretty devastating. Like
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: if I hadn't had savings, that would have really taken
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: me out. And it wasn't really my fault.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean, that's kind of what happened with like
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: student loans and people. Was like, if you can't pay
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: off it an entire chunk, it just builds up. Like
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: I looked back at the amount of what I originally
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: took out, and it has grown eight times what I
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: took out. And by the way, I've been paying. Oh,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: I paid for like the past entirety of my college
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: except for like one year with the pause when during COVID,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: and like, it's such an absurd amount that it went
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: to from what it was to which because I was
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: not as a social worker who got paid less amenimum wage,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: could not pay the entirety of the amount, so it
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: just grew. Yeah, stuff like that, just like this is
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: where it's a scheme.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, because again I'm not going to
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: give you the number, but Samantha knows it. And it
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: was horrendous. Yeah, and I should have only paid two hundred.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: It was eyewatering how much I ended up having to pay.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: And it was just because I didn't know I had
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: something to pay and I had to hire a fancy lawyer.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Right, we even had to shell out more money, yes,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: to get it settled.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, another thing that people talk about when it comes
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to women and the tax industry here in the US
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and around the world, it's largely made up of men. Also,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: no surprise, especially in kind of more executive leadership roles.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I read somewhere that women only account for about eleven
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: percent of finance ministers. There's also a whole story about
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: how there was a finance global summit and there was
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: only one woman and she wasn't allowed to take a
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: picture with the men. So it's not great. That's not good.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Another thing that's no surprise, a nine out of ten
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: US dollar billionaires are men. So if they aren't getting
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: properly taxed or their investments aren't getting properly taxed, why
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: does the gender poverty gap and the gender savings gap?
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: And yeah, there are other more complicated ways taxes impact
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: women too, including how taxes are allocated, what tax funded
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: programs they go to or don't go to, improving safety
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: in public spaces, investment into things like domestic violence, childcare,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: all of which childcare still largely falls to women. And
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of the tax uh blog posts I read
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: were about this. As you can imagine, those are not
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: a high priority for this administration, and in fact they
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: are actively being dismantled. So that's another way taxes impact women.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: And of course all of this is made where by
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: the pink tax, which we have talked about before, that
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the pink taxes when products typically more geared towards women,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: are more heavily text or even just products women need,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: They're just more heavily taxed, so that makes the whole
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: thing worse.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Interestingly, I came up on someone who just wrote a
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: book titled Double Tax, The Double Tax an a gifty Guman.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: I'm so sorry if I said that, right, I'm gonna
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: find the correct way to say it, because I'm really
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: interested in this book as she writes not only about
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: the pink tax, but how women of color, specifically black
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: women are doubly tax on top of that, and then
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: talking about tarots. So we'll look into that. But I
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: find that fact like conversation starting to happen more, and
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I'm really glad to that. But it is is this
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: like eye opening moment of realizing, yeah, this is gonna
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: affect everyone, but who's gonna affect the most are black women.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, which does bring us to tariffs and so
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: called pink tariffs.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, still got a fun name for that too.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I know, let's just put a fun name on it. Okay,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: So again, no experts, but I did want to put
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: this in here because a lot of people do get
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: this wrong, including some people that are running this country.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: A tariff is paid by the country doing the imboarding,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: not the country where the products are coming from. All right, okay,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: so Trump has long been obsessed with tariffs. He made
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: it clear, all of you CEOs that are now mad,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: that this was something he was going to do, something
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: to expect. And of course the rollout of his tariffs
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: was disasters and hurt not only the US economy but
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: the global economy. So he paused him for ninety days, which,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: by the way, he had been president less than ninety
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: days when this happened. Isn't that a fun fact? Apart
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: from the tariffs on China, which is an ongoing thing
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: right now. But you know it be cool. It's okay,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: be cool. So if they do, if these tariffs do
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: roll out according to plan, they are anticipated to cost
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: American households and annual sixteen hundred to two thousand dollars,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: but other estimates put it higher in the three thousand
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: dollars range, which is a lot. And this is this
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: is a thing I found that I was shocked and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: then like I guess, so apparently in cells love Trump's
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: tariffs and think they will get them. Girl for its
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: all right. So the manisphere, which we did we have
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: an episode on you can check out that we did
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: pretty immediately after the election, is torn between confusion and
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: anger at these tariffs. They don't know a lot of
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: them are trying to explain them away or justify them,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: even as Trump himself is going all over the place
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and backtracking and changing his mind. The market's in turmoil,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: and then of course I don't know why we gotta
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: do this, but here we are. A Fox News host
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: wondered if tariffs could be the ultimate testosterone boost. Another
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: one claimed that the return of factory jobs to the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: US is good because quote, when you sit behind a
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: screen all day, it makes you a woman. Studies have
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: shown this. Meanwhile, meanwhile, the Kirn read something like Trump's
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: manly tariffs. This is a real thing and it was
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: a meme, so you can look that up. Because these
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: are manly jobs. Another big argument is like, if you
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: can't stomach the turmoil, you're no man. Yeah, successful men
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: must suffer. They don't have fun. You hustle except sometimes
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: but mostly no.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Can we also talk about with this level of like
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: become a man being the factory, be out there, use
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: your hands, that black lung has come back. Oh yeah,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: I just read that because of this has everything to
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: do with the CDC and the different health departments and
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: the disease prevention stuff. But in this conversation of like,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: beware coal miners who are still existing, who some of them,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: chunk of them did vote for Trump? Union people who
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: are voting and said we should.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: They didn't.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: They never necessarily endorsed Trump, but they didn't endorse anyone else.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Like certain peoples were like, oh no, but definitely Trump. Yeah,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: old school diseases, which I don't think they were eradicated. Like,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: give me, I don't know much about black lung, so
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: maybe someone else who does can come at me and
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: let me know. But yeah, they're talking about reported cases
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: of an increase or a notable difference of increase in
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: black lag. Be a man diarly of black law.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there is a lot being written about this
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: because there's a lot of discourse that's happening within the manisphere.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: That is, essentially, women are at fault, of course, because
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: they messed with the quote natural order and they were
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: having fun. They were ruining men's lives by having fun
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and by wanting divorces and so the discourse is men,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't be having fun, This should hurt, and if
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: you question it, what's wrong with you? It's very much
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: turning it on, like you can't if you're too weak,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: if you can't stomach what this is. But also it's
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: very funny slash sad how quickly even proponents of these tariffs,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: or at least they say they're proponents of these tariffs
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: fold when reporters are like, but what about automation and
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: AI won't that and they just can't answer it. They
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: just cannot answer it. And I'm.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: As similar questions to what's happening with immigration, like when
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: they're being questioned with like, well, how do you know this?
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Why are you defying the judges? Who has more rules?
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Should everyone follow the judges' rules? And they're just like
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: you talked about lawyers lemonate it like literally no answers
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: because they know it cannot stand up in true argument,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: which is also why like town halls are being very
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: very organized to make sure that they don't have any opposition.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: MTG Marjorie Taylor Green just decided to arrest all of them,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: and they also pretty much stun gun them for talking.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you don't have answers. There is one clip
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that is I mean again, it's it's sad, but it's
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: also kind of funny where the journal is just asked.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I think it's the main tariff guy, Steve whatever his
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: name is, well you know who I'm talking about.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, the very pale ball dude.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, she she asked him about this
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: and he was He just literally kind of trails off
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: and is like, yeah, okay.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Also, I just have to put this in here. This
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: is not new, but I ran into it when I
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: was researching this. I love how many interesting end quotes
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: articles I find about in cells are just kind of
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: traditionalist men or they're like I want a woman, but
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: women I hate them, all right, but if she'll have me,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: then I guess she's fine. But also I deserve more
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: than her. She should be.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Grateful for me, and if she's not bowing down to me,
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: then she's not doing her duty.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: It's just it's fascinating to me. It's fascinating and terrifying
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: how they're like, I want a woman, I hate this woman,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: but she'll do.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, great, thank you so much.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I love this, but okay, that does bring us to
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: pink tariffs. According to a study by the US International
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Trade Commission conducted in twenty eighteen, tariffs impact women and
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: low income people disproportionately. Right.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: So, a bill introduced in March twenty twenty five by
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: two US congress women calls for the Treasury Department to
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: study pink tariffs. This is because since we're all talking
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: about tears because of Trump, people have pointed out some
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: gender discrepancies and disparities. For example, a jacket classified as
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: a men's jacket maybe tax at a lower rate than
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: a women's jacket, same product, more taxes. The proposed tears
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: are only going to magnify the problem of paint taxes.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: On top of that, unisex clothing stands to be taxed
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: as if they were women's clothes. Obviously.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And one of the big arguments people that are
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: proponents of this make is that men are generally bigger,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: so it costs morphabic. But the cop that doesn't make sense.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: The cost analysis doesn't work out that way. Some quick numbers,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the US imports an estimated ninety eight percent of clothes
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: and ninety nine percent of shoes. According to the Progressive
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Policy Institute or PPI. Taxes and tariffs on women's clothing
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: likely costs women around two point five billion dollars a year.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: On average, Women pay three percent more on tariffs in
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the clothing category as compared to men. Women's clothes also
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: are more frequently made with more expensive and more highly
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: taxed fibers, further driving up the impact of tariffs, and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: there are quite a few examples. One that pops up
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: pretty often in articles about this is that men's silk
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: underwear is often taxed at two point nine percent while
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: women's silk underwear is at two point one percent. For
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: wool jackets, the tariff on men's is six percent, while
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: it's sixteen percent for women. Studies from twenty twenty three
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: found that Vietnam and China globally exported more than half
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: of the supply of underwear. So again, that's the country
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: that's importing the thing is paying the terrors.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Right. I think we all know this, and this is
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: there's this level of like rooting for the lesser evil
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: because China is not great. They just had a whole
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: issue about human and write stuff. So we're not saying
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: China is good country. We're not saying everything they do
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: is great. However, the pushback they're giving to the US
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: is entertaining. Now I'm on the word this carefully because
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: at the very least, unlike the people within our country
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: and systems and educational systems and such that are bowing
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: down preemptively because they are afraid of the repercussions. We
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: have places like China, who's like a few here we
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: go in which they gave the two hundred and eighty
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: day like passport free option for people to come in
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: and shop. I've seen this, and then I don't know
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: about some of other people's feed, but some of my
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: FYP is showing just Chinese importers and I guess factory
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: people be like, this is your Louis vittanbag. It took us.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: It takes sixteen dollars for us to make it. Come
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: and get it. Literally, is the response, as well as
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: the pushback and being like, Oh, we don't need meat
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: from the US, We'll go to Australia. Oh we don't
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: need oil from the US, We'll go to Canada. So
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: this is not oh, this is not working. It's not working.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: It's not working.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: And this whole attitude of like well, good people will
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: buy within the US. Doubtful.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: We don't have the infrastructure.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: We don't have the infrastructure, we don't have the workers
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: anymore because they've been detained or have left. So this
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: is not going the way I mean. Again, we're talking
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: to our own audience. But it's interesting to see the
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: pushback in this. And of course clothing is not the
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: only category with ginger tariffs like these either, looking at
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: shoes and toys again, purses and like all the extras,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: toilet trees, they're getting the same treatment.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, and all of this, just like we talked about,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: is further worsened by things like the gender wage gap
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: and for marginalized intersections like women of color. There are
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: couple of groups particularly impacted, and as mentioned, black women
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: is a big one. Black owned businesses and products for
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: black women are predicted to be heavily impacted. This is
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: compounded by a couple of factors historic systemic lack of
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: access to capital for instance, and friend of the show
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Nikki Pourchett Buy from a Black Woman has an article
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: about black women and tariffs in the US over on
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: her site. If you want to check that out, I
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: recommend it.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we're going to need to do like
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: another episode with her soon, maybe a happy hour episode
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: which is not a happy hour, but where we are
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: taking in some adult beverages, because this is a hard
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: topic that we need to be talking about on a
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: constant basis, Like we have to have these conversations at
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: the forefront about the marginalized folks being impacted because that's
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: what we often ignore and pretend like it's not a
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: big deal. And as an intersectional show, we're not going
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: to bypass that. So I think we're not Nikki. If
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: you hear us, we're coming. Okay, we need to come
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: and have some dranks. Yes, anyway, So single mothers are
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: also one of the big conversations. Via Forbes article, at
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Greaser from the PPI said single parent families, which are
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: ninety percent women headed, spend about forty percent of their
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: income buying goods. The high income level, the top ten
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: percent of the household spend about twenty percent of their
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: income on goods. If you're doing a teariff increase at all,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: and especially if you're coupling it with income taxes, you're
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: shifting tax burden away from the top end and towards
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: the bottom end of earners and it will fall mostly
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: heavily on single moms. Hello, pro birther people, do you
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: understand what is happening? These people that you have so
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: advocated that they have to have their have babies, who
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: have followed through and have fallen into your good graces
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: are now suffering the most yep yep.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Also, women own businesses have reported having no clarity or warning.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: I don't think this to women owned businesses, but I
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: was reading about women owned businesses in this case about
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: how they can't adapt because things change daily. On top
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: of that, they're having to spend hours a day talking
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: to suppliers. I can really relate to this personally, when
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: you have like a work crisis and suddenly like your
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: whole workday is just trying to fix this crisis talk
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: to other people like that's a huge ask on your time,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: That's the whole thing. They also lament the fact that we,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: just like I said, don't have the infrastructure in the
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: US to fill these gaps at the moment, and it
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: takes longer to put that infrastructure in place than the
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: administration is admitting. So many say the reason for a
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: lot of this is misogyny. Surprise, surprise. When these tariff
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: deals were negotiated, women weren't at the table. The first
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: US tariff laws were penned in the eighteenth century before
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: women could vote, and are sort of backed off on
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: with the implementation of the income tax in the early
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds. However, they made it come back with a
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: great depression in the nineteen twenties and thirties. Make of
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: that as you will. As discussed in our recent Equal
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Payday episode, all of these issues compound to mean women
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: have less in savings, lesser things like travel, Women live
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: longer than men, but have less money to retire. And
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: now people are worried about things like social Security you
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Medicaid their for one k's which women are less likely
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: to have, cuts to programs that help women, especially when
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: it comes to women with children. After Trump backed off
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: and put a ninety day pause on his tariffs borring China,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: a group of thirty eight women company founders came together
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: to request the president for tariff exemptions. We'll see, but
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: I have.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: So he's going to give individual businesses like you can
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: get these items personally to you without like, how does that?
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: How would okay? I think it was just kind of
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: a like, let's think about this. But I don't think
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: he's gonna think about it. I don't think that's kind
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: of problem.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: If he does that for anyone, it's gonna be Amazon.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Anyway, I do want to say, kind of going
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: back to the point you made a little bit earlier, Samantha,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: there is a much more complicated, broader conversation about fast
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: fashion and how that's related to this, and the rights
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: of the workers manufacturing these items and people getting fair
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: pay for things. What it is a conversation that's being
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: exploited in a lot of this, but it's also a
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: conversation we do need to include and not exploit. Like
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: it is a very important conversation.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: There's so much.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: There is so much, and like we said, this was
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: just a brief overview and it is a rapidly changing
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: conversation as we're talking about it. But listeners, if you
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: have any thoughts about this, I would love to hear
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: personally from other countries about how your tax system works.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: But also, yeah, if there's anything you want to hear
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: us dig into more, please let us know. You can
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: email us at Hello at stuffwenever told you dot com
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: you can find us on Blue Sky at momstap podcast
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff we Never told
• 31:41
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• 31:44
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• 31:45
  Speaker 1: get your books. Thanks as always too, our saper producer Christine,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: our executive producer, and our contributor Joey. Thank you. Thanks
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: to you for listening stuff I've Never told you Us
• 31:55
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• 31:56
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