A wealth-based tax credit can close the racial wealth gap while surviving constitutional review.

Evidence

I’d argue no. But this, or any tax reform designed to compensate black Americans for years of higher taxes, is unlikely to be found constitutional under the current Supreme Court. With that in mind, I propose a different shift to our tax system that will help close the racial wealth gap and that would be found constitutionally sound: a wealth-based tax credit that offers relief for the lowest-wealth Americans. This will not exclusively help the black taxpayers who suffered under Jim Crow or who continue to suffer today because they are black, which is why it is my second-best choice. But it will disproportionately aid those taxpayers, since 83 percent of black households have household wealth below the white median, and still withstand any charges of unconstitutional race-based policy. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 546

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEFINE: Establishes the exact mechanism: a facially neutral wealth threshold maps onto race because 83 percent of black households sit below the white median.

Related

• 83 percent of black households hold wealth below the white median. (similarity 0.93)
• Race-neutral tax reforms perpetuate racial wealth gaps unless they account for societal racism (similarity 0.85)
• Closing the wealth gap requires white Americans to act against their own interests. (similarity 0.84)
• Present-day race-neutral tax subsidies deepen the racial wealth gap inherited from past discrimination. (similarity 0.84)
• Closing loopholes would help most white Americans too since half are below median wealth (similarity 0.83)
• Race-neutral tax reforms will fail until underlying societal racism is addressed. (similarity 0.83)
• Racial data publication, flat progressivity, and reparations credit would close the gap (similarity 0.83)
• Race-aware tax policy can close the wealth gap while restoring the system’s original intent (similarity 0.82)
• Income-based relief misses blacks because income does not track wealth. (similarity 0.82)
• The tax system’s college financing incentives benefit whites and enlarge the racial wealth gap (similarity 0.82)
• Tax policy rewards the downward-flowing wealth pattern typical of white families (similarity 0.82)
• Compounded tax treatment of inheritances keeps the racial wealth gap resilient. (similarity 0.82)
• White decision-making, not black behavior, drives black outcomes today (similarity 0.81)
• Tax policy, not generational poverty, explains racial marriage wealth gaps (similarity 0.81)
• Tax policy rewards those already holding assets and punishes wage earners (similarity 0.81)