Do you think women be taxed for sanitary items?

[VRBeauty]

Thanks for the explanation.

Not to be snarky but not being psychic I have no way of knowing the difference between such products.

Not to be snarky, but Kenny - you could just try a pad for a day to experience the difference.

Seriously - they come with adhesive strips these days so no additional hardware is needed. Just adhere one to your drawers (no, I'm not asking) and go about your business for a few hours.

Oh, but before you pull up those drawers, dribble a tablespoon or three of liquid on the surface of the pad, to better approximate the experience.

 

[packrat]

Ugh and make sure it's a sticky and colored fluid so you can have the fun of trying to keep yourself clean. And be sure to do it in a crowded spot, like a bathroom in a busy mall where there are 50 people waiting for you to finish in your stall. And bring a purse and a coat and maybe a kid or two to juggle at the same time.

I'm not sure how to simulate the interesting experience of going about your day and leaking things at the same time. And things don't always...um..drip..or...flow shall we say? Sometimes they come out in chunks.

 

[kenny]

I can imagine the pads would be very uncomfortable.
Containing the event seems far superior.

I've always wondered but never had the boldness to ask something.
This thread might be the least-awkard opportunity.
Does a tampon not break the hymen?
IOW, does a virgin have to use a pad?

Serious question, from which I do not get my jollies, and I apologize if some find it crass.

 

[VRBeauty]

Sometimes, sometimes not. Women vary. (seriously)

 

[stracci2000]

Jeez, Kenny! The questions you ask!!
Yes, the tampon could break the hymen. That's why in the olden days they were only for "mature women".
I think some in cultures tampons are taboo, for this reason.
Women in ancient times used to coil up grasses and fibers to create tampons.
And they used to crochet reusable tampons, as well. You can certainly make your own these days, or buy some on Etsy.

Nurses in WWI started making disposable pads from gauze, and eventually the idea was marketed.
Before the adhesive pad, there were the horrible ones with "belts"----who remembers that????
And before that, our ancestors suffered with rags. In some cultures, menstruating women were isolated, and considered dirty until the bleeding stopped.

 

[packrat]

ahhh good times, good times.

I remember in a couple books...maybe Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret?...they talked about the pads w/belts. I forget now, but I remember reading them when I was younger and not knowing what that meant. Luckily (? I guess?) they were a thing of the past by the time I started.

 

[kenny]

Thanks for the answers.
That's what I thought.

I don't bother with unanswerable questions like what happens after we die or what's the meaning of life, but when it comes to answerable ones I'm curious.

 

[Sky56]

I liked reuseable cotton pads which were made of dark red fabric. Hand wash before putting in washing machine and dryer. They looked good and fresh. Only taxed once! I thought tampons were yukky, I don't want to go into TMI. I find menopause great because I no longer have to deal with it.

 

[quietlysw]

I'm so glad people have been mentioning cloth pads and menstrual cups - it's keeping them at the front of my mind for consideration.
I've been looking into reusable menstural items because my friend RAVES about them! Much better for the environment, much more economical... But I think I have a mild blood-phobia and am scared of having to clean them

 

[packrat]

I have a cup and can not for the life of me figure out how to use the thing. It seems seriously huge.

 

[LLJsmom]

Seriously? I do remember the belt. And those weren't pads. Those were DIAPERS. In fact, diapers would have been preferred to what the early "pre-Always" pads were.

And yes, packrat spoke the truth.

"Our lives aren't really such that we can just go stand over a hole for 3-7 days and let ourselves drain."

Some women don't have this issue, and some women do. Without TMI, I wonder why I don't lose 5-7 pounds every month, given my situation. I'll let it go at that.

So taxing sanitary products?? They are called "sanitary" for a reason. Does the city want to spend a couple extra million dollars every year on cleaning up the mess that would be left on public transportation, streets etc without the use of these products?

 

[Scorpioanne]

I didn't read the threat but in Canada the GST was just taken off feminine hygiene products after over 20 years of taxation. Too bad it's too late for me!

 

[Calliecake]

Seriously? I do remember the belt. And those weren't pads. Those were DIAPERS. In fact, diapers would have been preferred to what the early "pre-Always" pads were.

And yes, packrat spoke the truth.

"Our lives aren't really such that we can just go stand over a hole for 3-7 days and let ourselves drain."

Some women don't have this issue, and some women do. Without TMI, I wonder why I don't lose 5-7 pounds every month, given my situation. I'll let it go at that.

So taxing sanitary products?? They are called "sanitary" for a reason. Does the city want to spend a couple extra million dollars every year on cleaning up the mess that would be left on public transportation, streets etc without the use of these products?

LLJsmom, Your post also could not be more true! Today's diapers are definitely thinner than those pads were. I often wonder if men know how easy they have it?

 

[stracci2000]

And while we are on the topic----
Those stupid pads, even the good, absorbent ones made now, are USELESS overnight.
Gravity takes over, and you wake up in a puddle, no matter what. There. I said it.
You all know exactly what I'm talking about.

 

[LLJsmom]

And while we are on the topic----
Those stupid pads, even the good, absorbent ones made now, are USELESS overnight.
Gravity takes over, and you wake up in a puddle, no matter what. There. I said it.
You all know exactly what I'm talking about.

^ EXACTLY!!! And great. Now you need to change your sheets AGAIN...

 

[Sky56]

OK, time for a little TMI. The reusable cotton cloth pads I spoke of earlier close with a snap; it wraps around underwear and was comfortable and I never had leakage.

I was self-employed and worked from home - so sitting on the toilet when I needed to pee, just sitting there for five minutes longer each time - well, most of it came out then.

Tampons - No way I could get those in when I was a virgin. I tried, but gave up really fast. I was scared, really scared of pain.

Later, I started using tampons. Soon after, all that news about TSS (toxic shock syndrome) in the 1970's. I gave up tampons after that, and they were smelly and nasty when I took them out (the Yuk factor)

Letting it drain out naturally into the toilet or into a pad seemed much cleaner and natural to me. The store-bought throw away pads did leak and I felt diapered. The cloth re-usables just felt like wearing thicker underwear.

I'm old enough to remember wearing belted pads and garter belts with stockings when in 6th grade. It felt yukky and kindy creepy, being 13 and wearing those things.

I was unusual - 3 1/2 days of bleeding every 21-23 days. Short periods but I was always having them, they came so often. I was lucky in that I had no moodiness and felt the same emotionally every day of the month.

That didn't happen until I changed my diet to eggless vegetarian. Still had bad periods when I would eat fish, so I went strict with the diet in 1985. Before then, I bled heavily, had clots, it smelled bad and just was an overall nasty 7 day experience with a 28 day cycle, the first 2 days with cramping. Feeling moody a few days before. Coffee and chocolate made it all worse. After menopause, much enjoyment of coffee and chocolate with feeling good. It amazed me how diet change altered my cycles and type of periods.

 

[packrat]

And while we are on the topic----
Those stupid pads, even the good, absorbent ones made now, are USELESS overnight.
Gravity takes over, and you wake up in a puddle, no matter what. There. I said it.
You all know exactly what I'm talking about.

^ EXACTLY!!! And great. Now you need to change your sheets AGAIN...

I used to buy the super long overnight ones. They're about 2 inches thick and about 2 ft long I swear, about from front band to back band of underwear. Mom used to get irritated w/me for leaking and having to wash the sheets/pajamas more often. Like I could help it! I wasn't allowed to use tampons so my best friend's mom bought them for me when I was a freshman, and I used my allowance to pay for them and had to hide them.

Now that I've had kids, even tho they were both c sections, I find that I leak urine when I use tampons if it's been in for an hour or two, so I change often and use the super thin liners to catch oopses. And it's not fun to change them if there's not much liquid on them.

Yeaaaah it's great to be a girl.

 

[packrat]

made me think of this thread
http://www.danoah.com/2015/06/a-letter-to-men-the-lesson-of-the-saggy-burrito-in-my-pants.html

 

[LLJsmom]

made me think of this thread
http://www.danoah.com/2015/06/a-letter-to-men-the-lesson-of-the-saggy-burrito-in-my-pants.html

PACKRAT, YOU ARE MY HERO!!!! I'M DYING!!! THIS IS HILARIOUS!!!

(Even my DH had to laugh... )

 

[LaraOnline]

I am wondering why the issue has suddenly awoken from the grave in Australia.
No-one said a word when we had a female left-leaning prime minister.
Perhaps this issue is newly 'en vogue' as a means of embarrassing a conservative male prime minister?
In any case it sure shows how indulgent and 'small town' Aussie politics is.

Our GST has come under pressure. Although GST - General Sales Tax - was introduced as a general sales tax, there seems to be a renewed endeavour for the pleading of special cases. GST is not a luxury tax. It is a general tax. To be honest, everything within the economy should be taxed for it to be a functioning General Sales Tax.
I'm afraid women of the country should take one for the team and cough up that few cents tax. Yikes!

Everyone has a special area of interest in terms of what they consume.
Baby clothes, cots and prams would be taxed and yet nobody seems up in arms about the discrimination against babies.

Sorry to offend anyone, this just seems like a fairly undergraduate issue, in terms of its appeal when discussing GST.
Cost wise, it's certainly not a large impost.

 

[Sky56]

This thread brought to mind The Beatles "Taxman" lyrics:

"If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet."

 

[quietlysw]

GST stands for Goods and Services tax. Not General Sales Tax.
It isn't a "renewed endeavour for the pleading of special cases", in fact when the tax was first introduced, they set a list of tax exempt items. This includes:

• basic food,

• water,

• sewage and drainage services,

• basic medical and healthcare services,

• certain basic medicines,

• precious metals (PSers would support )

• farmland

Also add to this: condoms, lubricant, sunscreen and nicotine patches. The full list is even more extensive and can be found on the ATO's website. See how these might be seen as reasonably necessary items?

Now my problem with this is that womens' sanitary items should definitely, absolutely, without a doubt be included on this list. The fact that this tax-exempt list EXISTS, and yet these sanitary items AREN'T INCLUDED is what upsets me, and I assume many other women too.

Say this list did not exist, and I wouldn't have asked the question. If the GST was a General Sales Tax and every commercial item was taxed, then I would struggle to make the argument for pads, cups and tampons to be exempt.

The thing is, it's not a general sales tax. Someone made the argument for water, sunscreen, general healthcare, condoms etc. to be excluded, and they succeeded. I'm asking you why you don't believe we should be able to argue our case? Womens' menstruation has always been such a touchy topic for men (and as a result, for women - until now!!) and perhaps no one wanted to bring our bloody rags up. But times are changing, like someone mentioned, we no longer have to crouch over a hole and wait to drain out. Menstruation is a big deal, and it effects.... basically all women at some time of their lives. And haven't we been silent on this issue of our periods throughout the entirety of human history? Maybe time to take ownership and ask for this tiny gesture from the rest of society: that they acknowledge our periods are a FACT, they come for around 30-40 years of every woman's life, and that our tampons, pads and cups are indeed necessary! Sorry, but women don't need to "take one for the team" and "cough up that few cents tax". The economy will not crumble if they remove this tax. Maybe our conservative government should tax the high income earners to make up these "few cents", rather than ALL THE WOMEN IN OUR COUNTRY?!

Also, the issue is raised again, not to "embarrass" Mr Abbott, but because his government pals are thinking of reviewing the GST. What better time than now to try to achieve this change?

You might call Aussie politics indulgent and 'small town', but as a previous poster just mentioned, Canada just removed their 20 year old tax on sanitary items. So this isn't just a "small town" issue. Granted, it's a first world issue, but all of our "problems" really are.

TL/DR:
I disagree with you, LaraOnline. Looking at the list of tax-exempt items, I think most reasonable people would agree that pads and tampons are right up there in terms of "necessity" with sunscreen and condoms, and should be included.

Should there have been no tax-exempt list, I would not be making the argument for sanitary items to be tax free.

Also, a word from our treasurer from the Q&A episode which was what originally sparked this issue in my mind:

TONY JONES: So should the GST be taken off them? That’s the point.
JOE HOCKEY: Well, it probably should, yes. The answer is yes. What happened was when it was negotiated through the Senate by the Howard Government, the Democrats had a list of things that they wanted excluded and they didn't have sanitary products on it so it didn't happen.

Transcript can be found: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4219741.htm

 

[Calliecake]

made me think of this thread
http://www.danoah.com/2015/06/a-letter-to-men-the-lesson-of-the-saggy-burrito-in-my-pants.html

Packrat, This is hysterical. This guy nailed it!!

 

[packrat]

When I was reading it (and snorting my ass off might I add) and his then he talked about his attitude regarding periods w/his wife, I had a silent thank you to JD for stepping up to the plate many times, even before we were married. Times he'd cut out part of the box so he could take it w/him to the store and make sure he'd get the right ones or he'd call and I could hear him juggling boxes "Ok so this one is X and it says multipack and the colors are green, yellow and purple. is that right? Or do you want only the purple?" and the times I've needed liners and we've had a 10 minute conversation w/him going "paaaahnties! what kind of paaaaahnty liners do you need" and I screech about how much I hate that word. Then he describes the wrapper colors..these are blue and they look kinda like the ones you showed me..these other ones the drawing looks longer, do you want these shorter ones? wait, these have multi colored wrappers, you might like these better, they're prettier"

 

[missy]

When I was reading it (and snorting my a$$ off might I add) and his then he talked about his attitude regarding periods w/his wife, I had a silent thank you to JD for stepping up to the plate many times, even before we were married. Times he'd cut out part of the box so he could take it w/him to the store and make sure he'd get the right ones or he'd call and I could hear him juggling boxes "Ok so this one is X and it says multipack and the colors are green, yellow and purple. is that right? Or do you want only the purple?" and the times I've needed liners and we've had a 10 minute conversation w/him going "paaaahnties! what kind of paaaaahnty liners do you need" and I screech about how much I hate that word. Then he describes the wrapper colors..these are blue and they look kinda like the ones you showed me..these other ones the drawing looks longer, do you want these shorter ones? wait, these have multi colored wrappers, you might like these better, they're prettier"

Same here. Our very first weekend spent together I unexpectedly got my period and had nothing with me and we were at the beach and it was Sunday at 6AM. Greg woke up and asked what was wrong and when I told him and also said I doubt any store carrying what I needed was open at this time he told me not to worry that he would get me what I needed. He went out found a store that was open and got me exactly what I needed. I should have realized right there what a prince he is. Now of course all these years later I know but at that time I was just thankful a store was open there so early Sunday AM.

Packrat, hysterical link. Thanks for posting it.

 

[missy]

I liked reuseable cotton pads which were made of dark red fabric. Hand wash before putting in washing machine and dryer. They looked good and fresh. Only taxed once! I thought tampons were yukky, I don't want to go into TMI. I find menopause great because I no longer have to deal with it.

Yes I have to agree. I admit I was very worried about menopause and what it might do to me in terms of aging etc. but so far so good and not having my periods anymore to worry about and cause me pain is a big positive of menopause.

Of course there are negatives but no need to go into that here LOL.

 

[packrat]

haha he was totally a keeper Missy!

I'm kinda excited about menopause coming up and not having to deal w/this every month. I asked my mom after I'd had it a couple few times if I could have a hysterectomy. She wouldn't go for it.

 

[Calliecake]

Packrat and Missy, We married great guys. The doctors wanted me to have a hysterectomy at 40 because of extremely heavy and long periods. I really was who NASA had in mind with the 100 tampons. My poor husband bought tampons constantly and never once complained. I remember him saying these things can really get costly when you buy a couple boxes every week. Packrat, You may want to talk to your doctor about a Thermal Ablation. I had one at forty and it was truly a lifesaver.

 

[packrat]

I think a coworker from when I worked at the office had that thermal ablation done. I don't know that mine are bad enough to warrant it...i'd like to just be done w/them altogether!

 

[LaraOnline]

GST stands for Goods and Services tax. Not General Sales Tax.
It isn't a "renewed endeavour for the pleading of special cases", in fact when the tax was first introduced, they set a list of tax exempt items. This includes:

• basic food,

• water,

• sewage and drainage services,

• basic medical and healthcare services,

• certain basic medicines,

• precious metals (PSers would support )

• farmland

Also add to this: condoms, lubricant, sunscreen and nicotine patches. The full list is even more extensive and can be found on the ATO's website. See how these might be seen as reasonably necessary items?

Now my problem with this is that womens' sanitary items should definitely, absolutely, without a doubt be included on this list. The fact that this tax-exempt list EXISTS, and yet these sanitary items AREN'T INCLUDED is what upsets me, and I assume many other women too.

Say this list did not exist, and I wouldn't have asked the question. If the GST was a General Sales Tax and every commercial item was taxed, then I would struggle to make the argument for pads, cups and tampons to be exempt.

The thing is, it's not a general sales tax. Someone made the argument for water, sunscreen, general healthcare, condoms etc. to be excluded, and they succeeded. I'm asking you why you don't believe we should be able to argue our case? Womens' menstruation has always been such a touchy topic for men (and as a result, for women - until now!!) and perhaps no one wanted to bring our bloody rags up. But times are changing, like someone mentioned, we no longer have to crouch over a hole and wait to drain out. Menstruation is a big deal, and it effects.... basically all women at some time of their lives. And haven't we been silent on this issue of our periods throughout the entirety of human history? Maybe time to take ownership and ask for this tiny gesture from the rest of society: that they acknowledge our periods are a FACT, they come for around 30-40 years of every woman's life, and that our tampons, pads and cups are indeed necessary! Sorry, but women don't need to "take one for the team" and "cough up that few cents tax". The economy will not crumble if they remove this tax. Maybe our conservative government should tax the high income earners to make up these "few cents", rather than ALL THE WOMEN IN OUR COUNTRY?!

Also, the issue is raised again, not to "embarrass" Mr Abbott, but because his government pals are thinking of reviewing the GST. What better time than now to try to achieve this change?

You might call Aussie politics indulgent and 'small town', but as a previous poster just mentioned, Canada just removed their 20 year old tax on sanitary items. So this isn't just a "small town" issue. Granted, it's a first world issue, but all of our "problems" really are.

TL/DR:
I disagree with you, LaraOnline. Looking at the list of tax-exempt items, I think most reasonable people would agree that pads and tampons are right up there in terms of "necessity" with sunscreen and condoms, and should be included.

Should there have been no tax-exempt list, I would not be making the argument for sanitary items to be tax free.

Also, a word from our treasurer from the Q&A episode which was what originally sparked this issue in my mind:

TONY JONES: So should the GST be taken off them? That’s the point.
JOE HOCKEY: Well, it probably should, yes. The answer is yes. What happened was when it was negotiated through the Senate by the Howard Government, the Democrats had a list of things that they wanted excluded and they didn't have sanitary products on it so it didn't happen.

Transcript can be found: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4219741.htm

Goods and Services vs general sales tax...it's a moot point as the idea was to remove other sales tax (although there are luxury taxes on some items) and replace with a broad band sales tax. The idea was to reduce the complexity of the tax system, but this original drive seems to have been lost.
there is a good argument for the addition of the tax on sunscreen and other items used by healthy people such as condoms, as many other important and necessary items such as toilet paper are taxed.

Ultimately though, I think the argument revolves around a kind of childish feminism that sees periods of healthy adult women as somehow 'special'. There is an argument for a lack of tax on medical aids, but periods are normal, and only last for a relatively few years of a life. In fact, perhaps the smart play would be for medically needy people to be able to claim the GST back, but for all items in the economy to at least be taxed in the first instance.