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Garcia “NO Tax on Tampons” Passes Out of Senate Appropriations


(Sacramento) – A step closer to bringing gender equity to our state tax code, today the Senate Appropriations Committee approved Assembly Bill 1561, a bill to ban taxation on women’s menstrual products in California.

 The measure, joint authored by Democratic Assemblymember Cristina Garcia and Republican Ling Ling Chang, would exempt tampons, sanitary napkinsmenstrual cups, and menstrual sponges from state sales and uses taxes.

Assemblymember Garcia commended the members of the Senate Appropriations on passing AB 1561, “My colleagues agree it is time to end this out of date practice and support gender equity in the State of California’s tax code and I thank them for that.”

“Fundamentally this is about gender equity and leveling the field,” Garcia said. “Every month, for 40 years of our lives, we are taxed for being born women. Every month of our adult life we are taxed for our biology. Every month we are told our periods are a luxury, while also being told they are something to be ashamed of and we must hide,” Garcia concluded. “Let me be clear, on biology, periods are not luxuries and they are definitely not something women should be ashamed of, period!”

Since its introduction AB 1561 has garnered intense interest from across the country and around the World, as California attempts to join only a handful of other states, Canada and U.K. in eliminating taxes on menstrual products.  To date, AB 1561 has gathered 43 Republican and Democratic Legislators as co-authors and over 30 support organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics, Target, Planned Parenthood and the California Grocers Association.

The 58th Assembly District includes the cities of Montebello, Pico Rivera, Commerce, Bell Gardens, Downey, Norwalk, Bellflower, Cerritos and Artesia.

  • TimG says:

    So high taxes for everything else is okay? Some states have no sales taxes. Maybe we should do this for California.