Good news, everyone: Joe Biden’s nominee to head the IRS has promised to make tax audits more racially “equitable”! In other words, get ready for more shakedowns from the government, white people.
Hooray!
It was bad enough that Biden just infused nearly $100 billion into an agency despised by anyone trying to make an honest living — we’re the ones most likely to be harassed by it — but now it comes with the added insult of “equity,” a term that should be greeted like a real pandemic. Draw the blinds, close the shutters, and lock the doors.
Daniel Werfel, who is likely to be the next IRS commissioner, made the commitment during his congressional testimony on Wednesday after Stanford University published a study claiming that black taxpayers are disproportionately hit with audits. As with every other law or policy that supposedly “disproportionately impacts communities of color” (ie. rules meant to keep everyone safe and everything fair from ne’er-do-wells), this is B.S.
It’s true that black filers receive audit notices at a higher rate than non-black filers. But that’s because black taxpayers claim certain lower-income tax credits, like the earned income tax credit or credits for single parents, at a higher rate. That often means a filer receives money from the government that he never paid into it. “When someone claims one of these tax credits, which are part of our country’s social safety net,” the study said, “they receive a refund amount even if they didn’t pay any taxes.” (The
