Senator Warren chides US Treasury for slow progress in tackling racial discrimination

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) faces reporters during a break in a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence (AI) Insight Forum for all U.S. senators at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., September 13, 2023. REUTERS/Julia Nikhinson/File Photo

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren this week called on the Treasury Department to more swiftly address racial discrimination in the U.S. tax and banking systems by advancing reforms proposed by an advisory board set up in December 2022.

In a letter dated May 9, Warren told Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen she was concerned that many recommendations made by the Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity (TACRE) had not been implemented, including reforms to the IRS audit process.

Yellen named 24 experts to the committee to analyze U.S. economic factors that resulted in unfavorable conditions for Black, Latino and Native Americans. They have made over 40 recommendations to date, but experts say change has been slow.

Warren said the recommendations would improve economic conditions for Black and Brown communities that face barriers to building equity and assuring financial security for their families, and urged Yellen to implement them swiftly.

“I am concerned that the recommendations made by members of the TACRE remain in limbo at Treasury,” Warren wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

One committee member, Dorothy Brown, a tax lawyer and law professor, told Marketplace in January she worried that Treasury was not embracing the recommendations and saw the committee as a “check-the-box” exercise.

Warren asked Treasury to brief her staff by May 23 on the timeline for implementing the remaining proposals, including reforms to the Internal Revenue Service’s auditing progress, and creation of outreach tools to ensure low-income tax credits and green energy credits reached under-served communities.

The Democratic senator’s letter comes as President Joe Biden works to shore up support in communities of color ahead of the November presidential election, in which he is seeking a second term. A number of Republican senators have challenged creation of the committee, and its work has been closely scrutinized.

Warren welcomed what she called a “much-needed” Treasury rulemaking released in late March that would adopt one recommendation – that the IRS share tax data with Census to better track racial disparities in tax enforcement.

The changes marked a positive first step, she said, but more work was needed on other proposals, including inclusion of analyses that looked at how Biden’s tax proposals would affect households with different race and income levels, and whether they would benefit from new clean energy investments.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)