How the U.S. tax code disadvantages Black Americans

 


America has a major racial wealth gap that is driven in part by the way the federal tax code is written, according to a law professor who has spent her career documenting racism in the tax system. 

Indeed, the median wealth for White families is almost eight times that of Black families and five times that of Hispanic families, who have been held back by loopholes in the U.S. tax system, according to Dorothy A. Brown, a professor of law at Emory University and the author of "The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans — and How We Can Fix It." 

"What the tax law does every April 15th sees to it that Black Americans pay higher taxes than their White peers because Black and White Americans engage in the same activity, but tax law impacts differently because we bring our racial identities onto our tax forms," Brown told CBS News' Tanya Rivero and Tony Dokoupil.

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