Senate Holds Hearing Today On Combatting Inequality: The Tax Code And Racial, Ethnic, And Gender Disparities

The Senate Finance Committee holds a hearing today on Combatting Inequality: The Tax Code and Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities at 10:00 AM ET (live video here):

• Dorothy Brown (Emory)
  Testimony:  In my testimony today, I will discuss three ways that tax policies are more likely to provide tax breaks for white Americans than black Americans. The first looks at the tax breaks for marriage. The second looks at tax breaks for sales of homes. The third looks at tax breaks for employer provided retirement accounts. But if there is one thing that I hope you remember from what I will be sharing with you today it is that racial inequality is baked into how our tax laws operate.
• Mihir A. Desai (Harvard)
  Testimony:  While equity is commonly understood as a guiding principle of tax policy (along with efficiency and administrability), the specific issues raised in this hearing – the role of race, ethnicity, and gender — are important considerations that have not received the attention that they deserve. I applaud your willingness to engage these questions and, in particular, I’m delighted to share this opportunity with Professor Dorothy A. Brown, who has done so much to advance the agenda around race, in particular

• Shay Hawkins (Opportunity Funds Association)
• Himalaya Rao-Potlapally (Black Founders Matter Fund)
  Testimony:  You will probably notice that I don’t represent the face of Venture Capital. On the surface, there are very few women in this space, and even less women of color. I am also a first-generation immigrant to this country and I started my career as a school social worker in the Bronx in New York City working in high-risk schools with children and families. ... I cite three main reasons for this inequity; the underlying framework for evaluating potential startups, the homogeneous groupthink mentality, and the lack of an onramp to truly representative investors.