IRS tax statistics are not published by race so proxies are needed

Evidence

I’ve chosen to focus on the challenges facing black Americans for a few reasons. First, the black-white wealth gap is larger than the Latinx-white and Asian American–white wealth gaps. (We do not have enough information to determine the depth of the Native American–white wealth gap.) Second, because the IRS doesn’t publish tax statistics by race, we have to look elsewhere for proxies. The most relevant data that can be extracted from other sources concerns black and white families; it’s simply where the most information is published. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 76

Categorization

• QUESTION: Core evidence hole for the whole book. Which proxy datasets does she use and how does she defend them?
• SEED: An essay on what tax data by race would even look like — and why the IRS resists collecting it — could be a compelling standalone piece.