Think Temple for Tax

Tax Center Statement in Support of Black Lives Matter

The Center for Tax Law and Public Policy stands in solidarity with our Black students and colleagues and unequivocally supports efforts to end longstanding inequities in our legal and justice systems. Like others in the Temple Law School community, the City of Philadelphia, our nation, and the world, we are incensed and saddened by the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and many others, and the systemic racism those deaths lay bare. We endorse the statement published by Dean Mandel acknowledging the pain and anger felt most personally in the Black community and share his commitment to the crucial work of identifying and dismantling systemic racial injustice.

Our tax system is not immune. Just as our criminal justice system appears race-neutral on its face, but proves unequal in its administration and effects, so it is with our tax system. See, e.g. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/how-income-taxes-interact-racial-disparities. Recent history has made our tax system less progressive and more focused on taxing wages instead of capital, thereby exacerbating racial inequality in income and wealth. The IRS has been denied adequate funding and traditional functions like collections are being outsourced to a private industry that engages in noted discriminatory practices. Meanwhile, low-income taxpayers are audited at rates that have been more than twice as high as other taxpayers.

The mission of the Tax Center is to highlight the policy design and power of the tax law and to inspire our students to make a difference in peoples’ lives. That mission has never felt more urgent. Just as the tax system has both helped to entrench privilege and perpetuate inequality, it can also be an instrument of change. It will take a national effort to address our tax system and spending priorities. But we set the stage by recognizing the racial and other inequities embedded in the status quo and by educating students and the public so that we can bring about positive systemic change. The Tax Center supports the Black Lives Matter movement and will redouble its efforts to expose the ways in which the tax system entrenches bias while also offering a vehicle for social change.