Racial Wealth Gap
Two Ways a 2025 Federal Tax Bill Could Worsen Income and Racial Inequality
March 26, 2025 • By Joe Hughes
Two parts of Trump’s 2017 tax law that are particularly expensive and beneficial to the richest individuals are the changes in income tax rates and brackets and the special deduction for “pass-through” business owners. Lawmakers should not extend these provisions for high-income households past the end of this year, when they are scheduled to expire.
A Well Targeted Federal Renter Credit Could Help Reduce Wealth Gaps
March 3, 2025 • By Brakeyshia Samms
While lawmakers often speak about income inequality, less attention is paid to wealth inequality. Wealth is distributed even more unequally than income in the U.S. in ways that reinforce racial divides, leave some households with too little to handle unexpected expenses, and enable some households to pass down enormous intergenerational wealth. A renter tax credit is one tool lawmakers can use to reduce wealth inequalities both within racial and ethnic groups and between these groups. As we show in our new analysis, Black and Hispanic households are more likely to be renters and hold less wealth than white households.
Policymakers Could Consider Using Tax and Transfer Policy to Reduce the Racial Retirement Wealth Gap
February 3, 2025 • By Brakeyshia Samms, Carl Davis
As we show in our recent study, this is, in part, due to longstanding discrimination shaping racial differences in economic wellbeing in the U.S. Moreover, aspects of federal and state tax policies have helped create the vast racial retirement wealth gap in place today. For this reason, we evaluate how tax and transfer policy reforms could help shrink racial retirement wealth inequality. To inform lawmakers as they approach the 2025 debates, below we offer several guiding principles.
State Tax Policy Should Adopt the Principles of ‘Black Women Best’
November 20, 2024 • By Brakeyshia Samms
Focusing policy analysis on Black women illustrates how Black women have long shouldered the shortcomings of the economy and clearly points to solutions that work for all. Black women are at their best when they are financially secure, healthy, and free – and our economy is at its best when all people can thrive and benefit.
Corporate Tax Breaks Contribute to Income and Racial Inequality and Shift Resources to Foreign Investors
July 16, 2024 • By Emma Sifre, Steve Wamhoff
Corporate tax cuts and corporate tax avoidance worsen income and racial inequality in our country. Most of the benefits flow to foreign investors and the richest 20% of Americans.
Tax Policy is a Part of the Black American Story
June 17, 2024 • By Brakeyshia Samms
Juneteenth is a reminder of the hard-fought victories that helped Black Americans secure their delayed freedom, justice, and suffrage. And in the chapters about tax policy, the tales are no less fraught. From America’s prologue to the last paragraph of the Civil War, governments raised more tax revenue from the taxation of Black bodies than […]
Tax Policy to Reduce Racial Retirement Wealth Inequality
February 6, 2024 • By Brakeyshia Samms, Carl Davis
Historic and ongoing discrimination have created stark racial disparities in the US, and the racial retirement wealth gap is one such example.
The Moore Case Before the U.S. Supreme Court Could Widen the Racial Wealth Gap
October 17, 2023 • By Brakeyshia Samms, Moore v. United States
Moore v. United States, already a cause for concern for tax lawyers, could create more barriers for racial equity advocates working to reverse the economic plight of many households of color.
Voters Could Approve Local Capital Gains Tax in Oregon
May 10, 2023 • By Kamolika Das
At nearly every turn, Oregon’s tax policies widen inequality; as a result, the top 1 percent pay less state and local taxes as a share of income than the poorest residents. Taxing capital gains at the local level is an important and exciting move in the other direction – to tax income from wealth and use it to address crucial needs.
Child Tax Credit Expansion Would Shrink the Racial Wealth Gap
November 21, 2022 • By ITEP Staff
Extending the expanded Child Tax Credit would benefit nearly every child in low- and middle-income families. Under current rules, 24% of white children, 45% of Black children, and 42% of Hispanic children will not receive the full credit in 2023 because their families make too little. These figures would drop to zero if the provisions were extended, helping families of all races and disproportionately helping families of color.
How the Inflation Reduction Act’s Tax Reforms Can Help Close the Racial Wealth Gap
September 20, 2022 • By Brakeyshia Samms, Joe Hughes
Lawmakers have many opportunities to pass reforms that will make our tax code fairer and further reduce racial inequity in our economy. The Inflation Reduction Act is a great step forward; better taxing wealth and income from wealth and expanding targeted refundable tax credits would build on this progress.
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