Gavin Newsom: Repeal Taxes on Tampons, Diapers

California Governor Gavin Newsom will propose repealing state sales taxes on tampons and diapers, championing a cause that has lingered at the margins of the Democrat-controlled state legislature for years but never gained traction.

Bay Area public radio station KQED reported Tuesday:

At a meeting with the Legislative Women’s Caucus, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced plans to include the parent-friendly sales tax exemptions in his budget proposal for the coming fiscal year. The move would cost the state upward of $56 million a year in lost tax revenue, according to previous estimates.

But the governor’s office argued that giving working families financial breathing room, particularly on items they have little choice but to purchase, is worth it.

…

Unlike most food and medicine, tampons and diapers are not exempt from California sales tax because they are technically considered luxuries, not necessities.

In 2016, a bipartisan duo of female lawmakers proposed repealing the sales tax on tampons, arguing that women faced a special tax simply for being women, as Breitbart News reported at the time.

However, the legislation faltered in 2017 after it became clear that local authorities could still tax the products — and that some might insist on doing so rather than lose revenues.

It was not immediately clear how Newsom would propose overcoming that obstacle.

Ten other states have already passed tax exemptions for feminine hygiene products. In 2016, a group of female plaintiffs sued the state of Ohio over what they said were “discriminatory” taxes on the products, and the Ohio State House voted to cancel sales taxes on tampons in 2018, though the measure ultimately failed to pass.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.