Facially neutral tax rules hide racial impact until individual cases surface

Evidence

That doesn’t seem like a policy that would have a profoundly disparate racial impact—until you ask someone like John, an Atlanta taxpayer, parent, and nonprofit consultant, about his experience buying and selling a home. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Emory University, he’s lived in Atlanta for more than twenty years, and bought his first family home on Feldwood Road, in the predominantly black area of College Park. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 1254

Categorization

• XREF: Brown’s signature method — micro case study (John) revealing a macro structural pattern — echoes the case-anchored style of The Whiteness of Wealth. Shows how remedy-design builds from diagnosis. — connects to: Facially neutral ordinances enforced discriminatorily violate equal protection — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2955; Tax law attraction rested on its supposed colorblind neutrality — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 17; Tax policy’s racially disparate effects are pervasive and largely invisible — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 562 (+7 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Facially neutral ordinances enforced discriminatorily violate equal protection — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2955; Tax law attraction rested on its supposed colorblind neutrality — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 17; Tax policy’s racially disparate effects are pervasive and largely invisible — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 562 (+7 more)