Racial data publication, flat progressivity, and reparations credit would close the gap

Evidence

That doesn’t mean, however, that the black-white wealth gap can’t be closed. It will take intentional changes, by policy makers motivated to take societal racism into account, and by individual black and white Americans. Tax policy alone can’t solve the problem. But it can help. In fact, the changes to tax policy that will help reduce the racial wealth gap will also more accurately reflect the way our tax system was intended to operate in the first place, before rich and powerful influencers demanded conditions and loopholes that would benefit them and help preserve their wealth. I propose three key tax measures that would both reduce the existing gap and prevent it from perpetuating across generations: first, publish tax data by race, the way the IRS does currently for gender and age; second, return to a progressive income taxation system with no exclusions, a single deduction, and no reduced or preferential rates; and third, establish a tax credit—like the one L. G. Sherrod advocated for—as compensation for the historical, legal racism that was perpetuated well into the twentieth century and that has resulted in continued downward mobility for today’s black families. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 514

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names the three concrete policy levers that recur through the rest of the chapter — a roadmap worth preserving verbatim.
• SEED: The claim that restorative tax policy ‘will also more accurately reflect the way our tax system was intended to operate’ is a powerful framing hook for an essay: reparations as restoration of original intent, not new entrenchment.