Tyre Nichols

[jesmu84]

Memphis police chief has quite the history

[MU82]

More systemic racism, this time in IRS audits:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/us/politics/black-americans-irs-tax-audits.html?campaign_id=4&emc=edit_dk_20230201&instance_id=84209&nl=dealbook&regi_id=108420427&segment_id=124077&te=1&user_id=d36dcf821462fdd16ec3636710a855fa

WASHINGTON — Black taxpayers are at least three times as likely to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service as other taxpayers, even after accounting for the differences in the types of returns each group is most likely to file, a team of economists has concluded in one of the most detailed studies yet on race and the nation's tax system.

The findings do not suggest bias from individual tax enforcement agents, who do not know the race of the people they are auditing. They also do not suggest any valid reason for the I.R.S. to target Black Americans at such high rates; there is no evidence that group engages in more tax evasion than others.

Instead, the findings document discrimination in the computer algorithms the agency uses to determine who is selected for an audit, according to the study by economists from Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago and the Treasury Department.

Some of that discrimination appears to be rooted in decisions that I.R.S. officials made over the past decade as they sought to maintain tax enforcement in the face of budget cuts, by relying on automated systems to select returns for audit.

Those decisions have produced an approach that disproportionately flags tax returns with potential errors in the claiming of certain tax credits, like the earned-income tax credit, which supplements low-income workers' incomes in an effort to alleviate poverty. Those tax returns are more often selected for audits, regardless of how much in owed taxes the agency might recover.

The result is audit rates of Black Americans that are between three and five times the rate of other taxpayers, even when comparing that group to other taxpayers who also claim the E.I.T.C.

[Jockey]

More systemic racism, this time in IRS audits:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/us/politics/black-americans-irs-tax-audits.html?campaign_id=4&emc=edit_dk_20230201&instance_id=84209&nl=dealbook&regi_id=108420427&segment_id=124077&te=1&user_id=d36dcf821462fdd16ec3636710a855fa

WASHINGTON — Black taxpayers are at least three times as likely to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service as other taxpayers, even after accounting for the differences in the types of returns each group is most likely to file, a team of economists has concluded in one of the most detailed studies yet on race and the nation's tax system.

The findings do not suggest bias from individual tax enforcement agents, who do not know the race of the people they are auditing. They also do not suggest any valid reason for the I.R.S. to target Black Americans at such high rates; there is no evidence that group engages in more tax evasion than others.

Instead, the findings document discrimination in the computer algorithms the agency uses to determine who is selected for an audit, according to the study by economists from Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago and the Treasury Department.

Some of that discrimination appears to be rooted in decisions that I.R.S. officials made over the past decade as they sought to maintain tax enforcement in the face of budget cuts, by relying on automated systems to select returns for audit.

Those decisions have produced an approach that disproportionately flags tax returns with potential errors in the claiming of certain tax credits, like the earned-income tax credit, which supplements low-income workers' incomes in an effort to alleviate poverty. Those tax returns are more often selected for audits, regardless of how much in owed taxes the agency might recover.

The result is audit rates of Black Americans that are between three and five times the rate of other taxpayers, even when comparing that group to other taxpayers who also claim the E.I.T.C.

But, but..., white people. What about white people?

[Babybluejeans]

What's happened is people, in general, are not being promoted on merit any longer, hey?

Couldn't agree with this more. It's now been centuries that white Christian men have been given job opportunities only because they were another white Christian man, or through a family connection, rather than on merit. Glad there's a a strong movement afoot to put an end to that—the handouts are over.