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Another Voice in The Chorus Black Victimhood
As a black man, I read this book with great interest. The late Professor Derek Bell, in his book Faces at the Bottom of the Well, wrote that racism is a permanent, integral, and indestructible part of American society. There are several institutions and organizations in this country that are racist. The tax code is not one of them.
In a career that has spanned more than 25-years, I have represented dozens of individuals and organizations before the IRS and in the United States Tax Court. Consequently, I have more than a passing familiarity with the federal tax code. The fundamental premise of Professor Brown's thesis is flawed. She admits that the IRS does not have data based on race. The data in her book is based on conjecture, supposition, and opinion presented as fact. The issues that she cites as indica of bias under the tax code are behavioral based and have nothing to do with race.
Professor Brown asserts that the best evidence that the tax code is unfair to black people is that the median white family has a net worth of eight times the typical black family’s wealth. According to the Institute for Family Studies, 85% of Asians have two parent families, 74% of whites, 61% of Latinos, and 36% of blacks have two parent families. Two people working together toward a common financial goal are apt to achieve far greater results than a single person. Again, a behavioral issue.
Professor Brown argues that black people are far more likely to have jobs that fail to provide 401(k)s and other corporate benefits. Blacks are not the only ones with those jobs. Again, that has nothing to do with the tax code. Professor Brown cited the startling static that 60% of black Americans who start college never finish it. In addition, according to a 2019 Southern Regional Education Board study, only 59% of black males graduate from high school. If you fail to graduate from high school or start college and never finish, what type of job do you expect? The fact is that anyone with a job can save for retirement with an IRA. Again, failing to graduate from high school and failing to complete college are behaviors that have nothing to do with the tax code.
I could go on but all of the arguments in the book are based on conjecture and contrived metrics. Professor Brown has crafted sympathetic arguments based on behavior attempting to impute racism to the tax code. The connection is tenuous at best, and illusory in fact.
In a culture that has now embraced the repudiation of self-responsibility, Professor Brown’s ideas are finding an audience. The prevarication of facts and the perversion of statistics to perpetuate victimhood by blacks is once again looking for someone other than ourselves to blame for our collective condition. Enough of this nonsense!
March 2021 · Books