Advancing Gender and Racial Equity by Taxing Wealth

Commensurate changes to other parts of the tax and gender inequalities in our economic systems and system—including corporate tax rate cuts and ballooning structures.12 We highlighted how racial and gender bias exemptions to the estate tax—have also weakened the embedded in the tax code fails to match current realities ability of the progressive income tax to check extreme for women, people of col. [...] extract wealth for white people at the expense of people of color.18 Numerous discriminatory policies rooted in that In contrast, the wealth of those at the top has grown at the history, ranging from prohibiting property ownership by expense of the economic security of women and people of women and people of color,19 lack of access to credit by color, because of the inequities baked into our econo. [...] In addition, capital gains of $1,409 per share in the first a provision called stepped-up basis allows the heir to year of the pandemic.142 adopt the value of the asset at the time of the decedent’s death, so the increase in value of the asset during the The tax code gives preferential tax treatment of capital decedent’s life never faces the income tax. [...] In addition to the reduce the amount of revenue raised by the estate annual $16,000 per person exemption and the $12.06 and gift tax by one-third.242 Another type of trust million lifetime exemption (which applies to both the that has been increasingly used by the very wealthy estate and the gift tax), direct payments of tuition and to avoid the estate tax is the dynasty trust, which is medical ex. [...] The result is a tax code that helps to grow the tax code to produce and reproduce privilege and to right wealth and power of the wealthy few, while leaving the the relationship between our tax laws and the hopes and rest of us further and further behind.