Tax justice is crucial to the collective effort of building feminist and decolonial rights-based economies that support the wellbeing of both people and the planet. Tax policy and governance are essential facets of the social contract, as rooted in the principles of mutual responsibility and reciprocity: citizens contribute taxes, and in return, the government provides them with public goods and services. The revenue collected through taxation advances countries’ responsibilities to fulfill human rights, address the ecological crisis, and provide gender-responsive social services. Beyond revenue, tax justice advocates point to four additional key functions of tax—redistribution, reparations, representation, and repricing of socially harmful goods—together making up the “5 Rs” of tax.

Advancing genuine tax justice — and ensuring tax contributes to a broader vision of fiscal and structural justice — requires a progressive, feminist, ecologically just, and decolonial approach to taxation. This brief articulates an initial vision for that approach, covering:

• A holistic understanding of tax justice that is progressive, feminist, ecologically just, and decolonial in the context of a rights-based economy, including specific recommendations for types of taxes and broader tax policy under these principles;
• The relation of these principles to established frameworks of tax justice, including the “5 Rs”;
• The main actors involved in obstructing global tax justice and the narratives they espouse;
• Political opportunities to advance tax justice.

This paper was co-published in Feb 2025 by WEDO alongside the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Financial Transparency Coalition, and Shared Planet.