Winners and Losers? ... Equality lessons for Budget 2012
17 Nov 2011
Cover image for TASC Winners and Losers Budget 2012On Monday, November 14th independent think-tank TASC today launched 'Winners and Losers? Equality Lessons for Budget 2012'. A summary of the highlighted fundings is available here, and you can click here for a digital version of the document.
TASC received support from the EU PROGRESS Fund and the Equality Authority to undertake an analysis of two groups under the nine grounds in the equality legislation, namely sexual orientation and gender. TASC undertook a gender-impact assessment of Budget 2011 to quantify the cumulative effects of the main changes to direct taxation, social insurance and social welfare payments on the income of women and men.
Drawing on Marriage Equality's "Missing Pieces" report, TASC carried out a comparative analysis of the tax treatment of same sex couples who are registered civil partners, and married heterosexual couples, following the introduction of the Civil Partnership Act. The introduction of civil partnership addressed most of the inequalities relating to taxation experienced by same sex couples vis-à-vis married heterosexual couples. However, differences still remain and these differences mean that civil partners and their families still have fewer rights and protections than their married counterparts. The realisation of full equality between these groups can only be achieved through access to civil marriage.
