Pop culture often uses the term “tax man” as a catchall to describe tax authorities. But female tax commissioners are changing that stereotype by encouraging gender balance in executive positions — and leading by example.
In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, Tax Notes spoke with past and current female tax commissioners and tax administration leaders around the world to get their insights about the challenges that women face in the climb to the top of tax agencies — and what can be done to help them get there.
Female tax commissioners have come a long way over the years. In the United States, Shirley Peterson smashed the gender barrier when she became the first woman to be IRS commissioner, under President George H.W. Bush. When she took up her post in February 1992, there wasn’t much publicity outside the tax world. But inside, “it was a pretty big deal,” she said.
When Peterson was inaugurated, there was a reception on the first floor of the IRS building. “And I will never forget this. The employees of the IRS from the Washington area . . . lined up for at least two blocks, maybe longer, [and] stood in line to shake my hand,” she said.
Some in line were crying, according to Peterson. “They could not believe it because the IRS had always been a strictly male-dominated arena, and so the women were touched. Some of the minority employees had the same reaction — it was quite amazing,” she recalled.
Peterson’s term was only a year because Bush lost his reelection bid and, at the time, IRS commissioners had to step down when the president who appointed them left office. Only one other woman, Margaret Milner Richardson, has held the commissioner position, from May 1993 to May 1997, and Linda Stiff served as acting commissioner from September 2007 to March 2008.
“It would be nice to have women in that position again,” Peterson said. “I think it would be good for the employees, and it’s good for the country to see that a woman can handle that job.”
By all accounts, the number of female employees in tax administrations is on the upswing, at least among the countries represented in the Forum on Tax Administration (FTA).
The FTA, established in 2002 and hosted at the OECD, serves as a kind of club for tax commissioners from 53 OECD and non-OECD countries. They can collaborate, identify, and discuss emerging trends, develop new ideas to increase efficiency, and share experiences and best practices, among other activities.
At the group’s last plenary meeting, in Santiago, Chile, in March 2019, tax commissioners noted that in 76 percent of tax administrations, more than half of the employees are women. However, only 42 percent of administrations reported that more than half the executive roles are filled by women — and a mere four administrations reported having a higher proportion of female executives to female employees, according to a summary of the meeting.
The findings were interesting because women in senior positions tended to be represented better in tax administrations than in other government organizations, according to Naomi Ferguson, commissioner of New Zealand’s Inland Revenue, the first woman to hold that role. But the data also reflect a major imbalance between the number of women in leadership positions and the number of female staff, she added.
“Data is great for keeping ourselves and each other accountable,” Ferguson told Tax Notes. “It’s not as easy to hide from cold, hard facts, but you only need to look around the room at our FTA plenary meetings to get the picture that women are underrepresented in most tax administrations in senior positions.”
Plenary attendance is about 65 percent male and 35 percent female, Ferguson estimated. “While it changes all the time, currently we feel like we are at something of a recent high with 14 female commissioners,” she said. “But with 53 FTA commissioners in total, that is still just short of 25 percent of FTA tax administrations.”
'Tax Man' No More
One initial challenge that women face in general is that many of them may not even consider careers in tax administration to begin with, according to Ferguson.
“There are some really unhelpful stereotypes that exist around tax being dull and boring and not a very exciting career,” Ferguson said. “The ‘tax man’ is still talked about and he’s usually seen as middle-aged and bureaucratic. I know personally from my own experience that these stereotypes are just not true.”
Institutional issues could also pose difficulties for women who do decide to pursue tax administration careers and are seeking advancement. Unconscious bias can have an effect on workplace diversity, not only on women but on all underrepresented groups, according to Ferguson. “When you’re working in an area like tax that has historically been more male dominated, it can inevitably have an impact on selection and developing women as leaders,” she said.
Before Grace Perez-Navarro, deputy director of the OECD's Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (CTPA), landed at the organization in 1997, she was at the IRS, where she was the first female special counsel at the Office of the Associate Chief Counsel (International). “I never felt it was an old boys’ club,” Perez-Navarro said of the IRS. “It was different at the OECD.”
At the time, the OECD as a whole was a male-dominated organization, without an infrastructure in place to encourage gender balance across all of its work, according to Perez-Navarro. “When I first arrived, there was zero awareness,” she said.
Over time, however, the OECD started making changes, such as building procedures into the hiring process to ensure nationality and gender diversity among the candidate pool. While managers ultimately hire the most qualified people to fill positions, there was at least a greater consciousness about issues like gender, according to Perez-Navarro.
The OECD is now more aware of promoting gender equity across the organization, even introducing its annual March on Gender, in which it hosts panels, workshops, and speakers during March to discuss ways to advance gender equality, including in public leadership.
That awareness is growing within the CTPA itself, Perez-Navarro said, pointing to such initiatives as special workplace communications training for women and more research on tax and gender. Despite the progress, however, there is still a dearth of women holding senior-level positions, even within the CTPA, she added.
But it’s not for lack of trying, Perez-Navarro said, noting the efforts that she and Pascal Saint-Amans, director of the CTPA, have made to recruit qualified women for management positions. “I suspect it’s harder for women to pick up and move if they have families or if they have spouses who have jobs, so it’s a bigger decision,” she said.
Family Matters
Gender balance, particularly in tax administration, isn’t as big an issue in Portugal as it is in other countries, according to Helena Alves Borges, the first director general of Portugal’s Tax and Customs Authority.
When Borges started her career in tax administration 38 years ago, at the age of 19, her cohort appeared to usher in a new trend: more female participation in tax administration. While there were already several women working at the tax authority, only a few held middle management, mostly technical, positions, and none were in top management, she said.
“But those women were an inspiration to us young women who came later,” Borges said. “They opened new possibilities for the next generation, and they helped to build a culture of gender equality in the administration.”
Now her staff is 59 percent women, and of the staff who hold mid- to top-level management positions, 47 percent are women. But that gender balance did not come as the result of “positive discrimination” measures — it came naturally because of Portugal’s academic training of its population in general, Borges said.
While the Portuguese tax authority has flexible working hours and conditions to accommodate family obligations for both women and men, “women still face a tough choice when deciding whether to accept a leadership position,” Borges said. “Normally they accept the offer only when they have their family’s support.”
Like Portugal’s Tax and Customs Authority, Luxembourg’s Inland Revenue (L’administration des contributions directes, or ACD) has a nearly even gender balance, with 49.8 percent women, according to Pascale Toussing, who took up her post as director of the ACD in 2017.
Promoting gender balance among tax leadership positions at the ACD is a priority for Toussing. “Honestly, this is an important subject for me,” she said. “Shortly after I became director of the tax administration, I created the executive committee in which three of five members are now women. My [deputy] is also a woman.”
Still, similar obstacles remain. “The conciliation of private and professional life, especially in the case of the care of children, is in my view the biggest challenge for women who want to hold leadership positions, whatever domain they are working in,” Toussing said.
At the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance, the number of women on staff is on the rise. About 50 percent of the staff are women, up from 47 percent in 2016, and about 35 percent in leadership positions, up from 31 percent in 2016, according to Erika Reinweber, acting director general of the Financial Administration, Management, and Services section. She agreed that one of the biggest challenges that women in tax administration face is the compatibility of their jobs and their families.
“In my opinion, the only way that can work is to claim balanced family duties, which means that we have to encourage young fathers to overtake their share of child care and family care,” Reinweber said.
To bridge the gap between the workplace and home, flexibility is key for tax administrations to help women on the path to leadership, Borges said. “Remote work, more flexible hours, [and] scheduling meetings at times compatible with the closing of day-care centers and schools are some of the possible facilitating measures,” she said. “In other words, there is still room for improvement of working conditions for women in senior positions.”
A Little Help From Friends
To help increase the number of women holding leadership positions in tax administrations, the FTA launched a gender balance network at the Santiago plenary meeting. Ferguson leads the network’s advisory group, which oversees the network and includes members from Argentina, Canada, Norway, and Singapore.
The network has five goals, the first of which is evaluating the effectiveness of laws, policies, and initiatives across tax administrations to identify best practices that other administrations could apply to ensure greater gender balance, according to Ferguson. The network plans to publish its findings in 2020.
Second, the network aims to make it easier for members to share information, ideas, and knowledge. This includes the development of a knowledge sharing platform that female tax professionals can use to share their experiences virtually, according to Ferguson.
Third, the network is establishing a mentoring program. “This is essential in helping women who want to develop their aspirations for senior tax roles,” Ferguson said. “Having access to experienced mentors who’ve ‘been there and done that’ and can provide insights and direction for them is invaluable.” Already, the network has identified 37 mentors and 33 mentees and done some matchmaking for a pilot program, she added.
Fourth, the group will identify secondment opportunities across tax administrations to help women’s career development. “There’s quite a lot involved in creating this, from finding suitable opportunities to developing agreements for interagency secondments, so we’re still in the stage of getting things up and running,” Ferguson said.
The fifth goal is to secure effective coordination and oversight of the new network, build engagement, and garner support for its initiatives, Ferguson said. Part of that effort involves the recruitment of so-called gender balance champions — influential people who have promised to ensure greater gender balance within their tax administrations and are also available to mentor up-and-coming female leaders, she added. So far, there are 45 champions representing 28 out of 53 FTA countries, and that number is growing, Ferguson said.
The Road to Success
While many tax administrators are becoming more aware of gender balance issues and are implementing measures as a result, women looking to advance in their careers — in tax administration or otherwise — must also do what they can to move their careers forward, according to the women who spoke with Tax Notes.
“What got you here won’t get you there,” Perez-Navarro said. “For women who want to rise up through whatever organization they’re in, they need to manage their own careers and not think that just by doing a good job, they are going to move to the next level.”
Certainly, the research shows that women don’t often trumpet their achievements and continue to struggle to do so. “Many studies tell us that women need to be better at saying, 'I am good at this, good at what I do,' and asking for the things we need to be successful in our careers — but this is still a stumbling block for many women,” Ferguson said. “That’s not just in tax administration but right across the board.”
Reinweber agreed. “Self-confidence and an awareness of [one’s] strengths are very important,” she said. “In my experience, this is what women lack most compared with men.”
Visibility is also important, which is something that many women don’t always get and ought to push for, according to Perez-Navarro.
For Peterson, visibility, political support, and experience are essential for moving up, especially when aiming for a political appointment like IRS commissioner. While Peterson had never been involved in politics, she was active in the American Bar Association. Many lawyers who were familiar with her work and had heard her speak ended up writing letters to Bush on her behalf, recommending her for the post.
“Those things matter,” Peterson said. “Obviously you have to have earned it. None of these people would have written on my behalf just because I asked them to. They had their own reputations to consider and they wouldn’t recommend someone they thought couldn’t do the job.”
The future looks bright for women looking to move up in the tax world, thanks in part to the women who have worked their way to the top — and want others to join them.
“I’d encourage women who would like to advance a career in tax to embrace opportunities available to them — don’t be afraid to say yes,” Ferguson said, underscoring the importance of women using networks to learn from and connect with people who are doing what they want to do. “Good leaders are generous with their advice and want you to succeed.”