One important data inadequacy is the lack of demographic information in tax data. While the IRS data offers rich data on taxpayer income, it does not collect information on important demographic characteristics like race and ethnicity. This presents a challenge for researchers interested in the racialized impacts of the U.S. tax system and has prompted many researchers and organizations to advocate for public-use tax data that is disaggregated by race and ethnicity.
Emma Sifre
Emma Sifre supports ITEP’s microsimulation model and conducts research on the different effects of tax policy changes on race, income and geography.
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blog December 21, 2021 Why Treasury’s Pending Race-Based Analysis of Stimulus Payments is Important
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blog October 18, 2021 The Role of Census Data in Policy and Racial Equity
The Census has changed the way it asks questions in the past and can choose to do so again in the future. As the Biden administration makes data a central part of its plan to achieve greater racial equity, it has an opportunity to implement research-backed changes that will improve our understanding of race and ethnicity in the United States, and in turn, our ability to draw meaningful conclusions about how our tax laws impact tax filers of different races.
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brief October 14, 2021 Investment Income and Racial Inequality
Congress has a historic opportunity to fix the way the preferential treatment of investment income widens the racial wealth gap and to strive toward a racially equitable tax code.
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brief June 17, 2021 ITIN Filer Data Gap: How Changing Laws, Lack of Data Disaggregation Limit Inclusive Tax Policy
Like U.S. citizens, noncitizens who live, work, or invest in the United States must file local, state and federal taxes. But in order to file personal income taxes, they must first be issued a processing number called an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) by the IRS. These numbers are issued to both legal permanent residents and nonresidents who are not eligible for Social Security numbers. ITINs do not imply immigration status, nor can they be used for immigration enforcement purposes, but they can be used to create burdensome barriers that make it difficult for ITIN holders to file taxes and to impose additional eligibility restrictions on benefits that exclude ITIN filers. The time is now to focus on integrating all ITIN filers, regardless of immigration status, into our tax policies. But a lack of information on the ITIN population creates large gaps in our understanding of these filers and the role they play in the U.S. tax system.