- America First Legal Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act request for internal Treasury Department communications
- It claims that an executive order signed by President Biden last week encourages the IRS to alter its algorithms to audit more white and Asian taxpayers
- The algorithm the IRS uses was found to target black households and businesses more than non-black households and businesses
A conservative legal group is accusing the Biden administration of directing the Internal Revenue Service to audit more white and Asian Americans in an effort to boost ‘equity.’
The America First Legal Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to fight executive overreach, filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Tuesday claiming that an executive order President Biden signed last week encourages the IRS to alter its algorithms to audit more white and Asian taxpayers — and fewer black taxpayers.
Though the Executive Order on Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government does not specifically mention audits, it directs federal agencies — including the IRS — to find ways to make their practices more ‘equitable’ to underserved communities.
Specifically, the order directs agencies to ‘prevent and remedy discrimination, including by protecting the public from algorithmic discrimination.’
America First Legal Foundation is now investigating how that could affect the IRS, seeking internal documents from the agency referring to its efforts to improve ‘equity’ amongst Americans.
Under federal law, the Treasury Department now has just 20 business days to respond to the request.
‘Equity’ refers to an equality in outcome, rather than equality of opportunities. It has become a woke buzzword over the past few years — one that Biden has championed since he took office in 2021.
Supporters say it’s important to recognize that some minority groups may need extra help to achieve their potential. Critics say equity policies are often used in an unfair and sometimes even racist way.
Almost immediately after he was sworn in, the president signed an executive order that ’emphasized the enormous human costs of systemic racism and persistent poverty, and provided a powerful and unprecedented mandate for all federal agencies to launch a whole-of-government approach to equity,’ according to a recent White House press release.
In response, the Department of Treasury established the Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity, which provides the agency with recommendations on how to advance racial equity, ‘particularly aspects of the domestic economy that have directly and indirectly resulted in unfavorable conditions for communities of color.’
Biden then expanded on the executive order on February 16 by issuing another order that requires all federal agencies to implement policies that promote racial equity.
It says that ‘each agency head shall support ongoing implementation of a comprehensive equity strategy that uses the agency’s policy, budgetary, programmatic, service-delivery procurement, data-collection process grantmaking , public engagement , research and evaluation and regulation functions to enable the agency’s mission and service delivery to yield equitable outcomes for all Americans, including underserved communities.’
Specifically, the executive order directs each agency head to ‘prioritize and incorporate strategies to advance equity’ and ‘identify opportunities, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to incorporate new regulations to modify their respective agency’s regulations, internal- and public-facing guidance and other policies to include advancing equity as part of their agency’s mission.’
The executive order does not explicitly say that the IRS should alter its algorithms to reduce the number of black households that are audited, but it does say it should ‘prevent and remedy discrimination, including by protecting the public from algorithmic discrimination.’
