For Immediate Release: September 5th, 2024
Contact: media@colorofchange.org
COLOR OF CHANGE AND AMERICANS FOR TAX FAIRNESS RELEASE JOINT RACIAL TAX EQUITY ISSUE BRIEF
NATIONAL – Today, Color Of Change and Americans for Tax Fairness proudly announce the release of our issue brief, “How Tax Fairness Can Promote Racial Equity”.
This five-page brief, written by Color Of Change’s Managing Director, Portia Allen-Kyle, and Americans for Tax Fairness’ Executive Director, David Kass, is intended to outline the provisions within our current tax system that have exacerbated the racial wealth gap and stymied upward economic mobility for people of color. The brief’s suggestions are tailored to highlight the harm-reduction efforts needed to stop the massive accumulation of benefits flowing to wealthy individuals and corporations through current tax policy and provide an overview of minimum policies to begin to address racial inequities caused by the historic benefits that our current system has bestowed on white taxpayers.
More concretely, this joint brief breaks down how we can rectify racial inequality in our tax code through three measures: more effectively taxing wealth, addressing features of the tax code that support racial inequity, and passing tax code reform that would promote racial equity.
“An equitable tax system does two things,” says Portia Allen-Kyle. “It narrows the racial wealth gap from the bottom up and spurs economic mobility for Black, Brown, and Indigenous individuals and families in each of the lower quintiles for both income and wealth. Our current tax code fails on both accounts and is one of the clearest examples of how colorblind systems work to prevent Black families from being able to create generational wealth, economic security, and stability. Addressing the insidious racial preferences in our tax code is one of the most direct ways we can not only help Black communities grow here and now, but for generations to come.”
“One of the many deep problems in our current tax system is that it exacerbates racial income and wealth disparities, harming Black, Brown and Indigenous Americans,” says David Kass. “By privileging wealth over work; failing to adequately tax our richest households and most profitable corporations; and allowing inherited fortunes to compound over the generations largely unchecked by taxation, the code locks in and extends the economic advantage of white families over those of color that is a legacy of our nation’s societal racism.”
Color Of Change and Americans for Tax Fairness are open for comment on this brief.
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About Color Of Change:
Color Of Change is the nation’s largest online racial justice organization. We help people respond effectively to injustice in the world around us. Color Of Change has been an outspoken voice in the push for digital protections for Black communities to ensure our safety online, including advocating for such regulations as outlined in the proposal.
As a national online force driven by several members, we move decision-makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people in America. Visit www.colorofchange.org.
About Americans for Tax Fairness:
Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) is a diverse campaign of more than 420 national, state and local endorsing organizations united in support of a fair tax system that works for all Americans and in support of the belief that the country needs comprehensive, progressive tax reform that results in greater revenue to meet our growing needs. This requires big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, not to live by their own set of rules.