productivity and consumption result in a higher tax burden for female-only and female-headed households. (2) Our data shows that 65 percent of female-only- and 58 percent of female-headed households are smallholders with less than 0.5 hectare of land, compared to about 40 percent of their male counterparts. Smallholders face the largest per-hectare tax rates. Our results suggest that area-based land taxation is likely to reinforce gender inequities in agriculture and constitutes an implicit bias arising from gender norms in agriculture, household structures, and the gender gap in agricultural productivity.

Because of the regressivity of current tax schedules, we conduct a tax incidence analysis of a hypothetical tax schedule with progressive per-hectare rates and exemptions for smallholders from paying agricultural income tax. We find that this is likely to decrease the tax burden of female-headed and female-only households, but the tax incidence continues to be regressive because land rights are prevalent among poor rural households. This illustrates how difficult it is for area-based land taxes to be vertically equitable.

Tax schedules vary by region. This analysis finds a substantial difference between self-reported tax payments and imputed tax liabilities using land area and the tax schedules from the regions of Amhara, Oromia, and Southern Nations, Nationalities and People (SNNP). We discuss possible sources of tax discrepancies, which include (1) the Revenue Bureau not having the most current titleholders and precise land area data; (2) different methods used to measure land area; and (3) possible errors by tax collectors assessing taxes or by household survey respondents reporting tax payments. These discrepancies highlight the importance of administrative tax data and land registries to complement survey data to examine whether the most current title holder and area information are used for estimating tax liabilities.

This paper contributes to the growing literature on the gender dimensions of taxation in low- and middleincome countries. Much of the literature discusses the gender implications of personal income tax and payroll taxes (see Elson 2006; Grown and Valodia 2010; Joshi et al. 2020; Lahey 2018; Stotsky 1997). Grown and Valodia (2010) also examine gender issues in indirect taxes using expenditure data for Argentina, Ghana, India, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, Uganda, and the United Kingdom. Informal taxes have a gender dimension in Nigeria (Akpan and Sempere 2019) and Zambia (Ligomeka 2019). To the best of our knowledge, the genderdifferentiated burdens of land taxation in low- or middle-income countries have not been studied. We aim to elicit new evidence in this relatively unexplored topic.

The paper also contributes to the empirical literature on the tax burdens of agricultural land taxes in low-income countries. Most of the empirical evidence on land taxation focuses on vertical equity (for example, Hill et al. 2017; Kalkuhl et al. 2018; Mesfin and Gao 2020). Specifically, Hill et al. (2017) and Mesfin and Gao (2020) impute the tax burden of the rural land fee and agricultural income tax in Ethiopia by assuming a constant perhectare tax rate across all land area classes. Building on this evidence, we examine the horizontal equity from a gender perspective. Our findings on vertical and horizontal equity are relevant for countries where land taxation is area-based.

In what follows, Section 2 discusses the conceptual framework on gender and taxation and provides an overview of the rural land use fee and agricultural income tax, and of gender and land rights in Ethiopia. Section 3 describes the data and methodology, and section 4 presents the results and discussion. Section 5 provides a summary and draws conclusions.

# **2. Gender and Taxation: A Conceptual Perspective, and the Ethiopian Context**

# **2.1 Vertical and Horizontal Equity of Taxation from a Gender Perspective**

Vertical equity and horizontal equity are principles considered in assessing the fairness of taxation. Vertical equity is achieved when individuals with greater resources pay more than those with less, horizontal equity when individuals in the same circumstances are treated equally (Martinez-Vasquez 2001). When we consider equity from a gender perspective, it is clear that “same treatment” in taxation does not lead to gender equity in outcomes when there are structural inequities (Elson 2006; Grown 2010; Lahey 2018; UN Women 2015).

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