Absence of Black representation in tax lawmaking enabled the marriage penalty.

Evidence

But there were no black members on the House Ways and Means Committee, where tax legislation originates. There was no black Charlotte and Henry Seaborn, with the wealth and time to fight the laws that took money out of their pockets. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 119

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in structural racism as mechanism rather than accusation — the exclusion of Black voices from the committee is the mechanism here.