Five days before International Women’s Day, my husband received a cheque from the taxman for my return to work after having a child.

We had always filed taxes separately, and I had applied for tax credit, aptly called ‘tax credit for women returning to employment’, in person at the Floriana offices.

His signature had not been required so we thought it might be some administrative mistake.

However, when I asked around, it turned out that the same thing had happened to other women who applied for the credit, which could reach up to €5,000 and is listed as RA7 and RA9.

I am not the only one questioning this issue in a country where we were promised a feminist government despite the gaping gender pay difference and a female deficit in parliament.

The National Commission for the Promotion of Equality has been discussing the issue with the tax authorities for several years and has carried out its own investigation into the matter.

“The situation you refer to arises because spouses have joint tax accounts even when they have opted for separate computation. Tax debits or credits are sent to the ‘responsible spouse’, which is assumed to be the male partner unless the couple declare otherwise.

"The NCPE has always insisted that spouses should have separate tax accounts and receive tax returns separately,” commissioner Renee Laiviera told Times of Malta.

Laiviera noted that the situation was partly addressed in 2019, when the government announced that couples could now opt for separate tax accounts and receive separate tax returns, however, this was a one-off opportunity with the deadline set to the end of the same year.

Last year, the NCPE concluded an ex-officio investigation on this taxation issue.

“Among the recommendations put forward, I stated that couples should automatically have separate tax accounts, not only when they opt for it, since equal treatment should be the default and apply to all,” she said.

Times of Malta meanwhile asked the finance and equality ministries why every member of the household cannot be responsible for their own tax issue and whether the government was planning any changes to the law in this regard, but no reply was received.

Apart from the gendered approach to considering men as the “responsible” party, how can the authorities pledge to fight domestic violence on one hand and gift one spouse financial power to commit possible economic abuse on the other?