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Center for Public Integrity

Center for Public Integrity

Investigating inequality

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Category: Unequal Burden

The way governments choose to tax can help blunt fast-rising inequality. Instead, tax policies often make it worse.

Overlapping silhouettes of people in reds, blues, browns and yellow appear over a backdrop of tax forms
Posted inUnequal Burden

How states can make taxes more equitable

Avatar photoAshley Clarke smiles. by Maya Srikrishnan and Ashley Clarke February 22, 2024February 23, 2024

Oregon taxpayers will become some of the first in the nation to have the option to self-identify their race and ethnicity when they file their tax returns next year.  The reason is both simple and complex: Especially at the state level, taxes worsen America’s yawning wealth gaps rather than easing them. A growing number of […]

Cracked piggy bank with band aid
Posted inUnequal Burden

More tax cuts put states’ revenue at risk

Avatar photo by Maya Srikrishnan February 9, 2024February 9, 2024
A person's hand is reaching out of an overwhelming pile of papers that say "tax," "debt" and "bill."
Posted inUnequal Burden

Behind on state income taxes? Here’s what you need to know.

Avatar photoAvatar photo by Jamie Smith Hopkins and Maya Srikrishnan December 14, 2023December 14, 2023
Posted inUnequal Burden

State tax collectors push struggling people deeper into hardship

Avatar photoAshley Clarke smiles. by Maya Srikrishnan and Ashley Clarke December 13, 2023April 16, 2024
Posted inEducation

What’s the effect of school voucher programs on students with disabilities? 

Avatar photo by Melissa Hellmann October 13, 2023
Maati Jone Primm stands in front of her store. She is wearing a pink outfit, and she has two signs in the windows of her store. One says "Jim Crow Must Go" and the other says "Black Lives Matter."
Posted inWatchdog newsletter

In a historic Black business district, ‘death by a thousand cuts’

Avatar photo by Maya Srikrishnan August 25, 2023
Two men wearing blue surgical masks to protect from covid hold signs that say "Tax the Rich" and "Make the Rich Pay." They're walking outside with people behind them.
Posted inUnequal Burden

The long struggle over taxing the rich

Avatar photoAvatar photo by Melissa Hellmann and Maya Srikrishnan August 23, 2023
This illustration shows a white man dressed in a blue suit using an axe made of a wallet as the metal piece to chop into a tree stump.
Posted inUnequal Burden

State tax systems contribute to inequality. These states are doubling down.

Avatar photoAvatar photo by Maya Srikrishnan and Melissa Hellmann August 22, 2023August 22, 2023
A person wearing a bucket hat, jacket, and neon green gloves places a cardboard box into the trunk of a red car. Behind them, two women wearing blue shirts and a man wearing a neon green shirt holding another box stand waiting.
Posted inUnequal Burden

Grocery taxes face the chopping block in South Dakota 

Avatar photo by Melissa Hellmann May 26, 2023
Two silver wedding rings lie next to each other on a wooden table.
Posted inUnequal Burden

If you’re Black, saying ‘I do’ can increase your taxes

Avatar photo by Melissa Hellmann March 24, 2023May 23, 2023
An up-close photo of the Internal Revenue Service sign on the headquarters.
Posted inUnequal Burden

How will a divided government affect taxes?

Avatar photo by Melissa Hellmann January 27, 2023May 23, 2023
Teresa Rutherford gazes at her under-construction house from the second level. It's the wooden bones of the home, with light streaming in the windows.
Posted inUnequal Burden

Tribes need tax revenue. States keep taking it.

Avatar photoHeadshot of Shannon Shaw Duty, who is wearing glasses and smilingHeadshot of Joaqlin Estus, who is smiling with a body of water in the background by Maya Srikrishnan, Shannon Shaw Duty and Joaqlin Estus December 20, 2022May 23, 2023
An illustration in drawing style shows a small person pushing a quarter as large as them up a plank to drop into an Uncle Sam hat while a very large man -- dressed well, pockets full of coins -- easily drops his quarter in.
Posted inUnequal Burden

How four decades of tax cuts fueled inequality

Jim Steele by James B. Steele November 29, 2022June 26, 2023
Posted inUnequal Burden

What Nirvana’s birthplace taught me about inequality

Avatar photo by Melissa Hellmann September 14, 2022June 26, 2023
Posted inUnequal Burden

How state taxes make inequality worse

Avatar photoAvatar photoAshley Clarke smiles.Avatar photo by Melissa Hellmann, Maya Srikrishnan, Ashley Clarke and Joe Yerardi September 14, 2022July 6, 2023
A person sits at a table looking over receipts will using a calculator.
Posted inEn Espanol

Cómo los pobres cargan con el mayor peso de los impuestos

Avatar photoAvatar photoAshley Clarke smiles.Avatar photo by Melissa Hellmann, Maya Srikrishnan, Ashley Clarke and Joe Yerardi September 14, 2022May 23, 2023

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