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A tax on feminine hygiene products (also known as a tampon tax) was not new by the time social media interest in the topic appeared in May 2016, but a screenshot published by the page Women's Rights News contributed the buzz: The image originated with a 15 January 2016 interview between YouTube personality Ingrid Nilsen and President Barack Obama. The I don't know anyone who has a period who thinks it's a luxury comment was made by Nilsen, not the President: The topic was already steadily popular. NYMag.com published an article on 29 April 2016 that explored social media interest in the tampon tax: A widely circulated June 2015 map created by Fusion illustrated the tampon tax with color coding. Most states taxed feminine hygiene products, except a few that had either specific exemptions or no sales tax at all: Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maryland specifically did not tax [PDF] feminine hygiene products. Alaska, Oregon, Montana, New Hampshire, and Delaware do not have sales tax on any items (including tampons). The rest of the states maintained a tax on such products. One outlier was the state of New York, which moved in April 2016 to abolish the tax: Lawmakers in Michigan expressed interest in advancing a similar initiative, and the city of Chicago (but not the state of Illinois) axed the tax. On 12 April 2016, MarketWatch reported some momentum both in and outside the U.S. to end the additional charges: In May 2016, the majority of the 40 states with a tampon tax retained it (although New York was on its way to tax-free status for feminine hygiene products). By and large, social media tampon tax claims were accurate. To be clear, tampons weren't taxed at a special or higher rate than other taxable items — they simply were subject to sales tax in general.
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