You can decide whether tax evasion receives 6x more attention from the press and elected officials than property theft.
Sources:
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-24
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11887
Here on Tax Day, let's remember the ubiquity of tax evasion. The IRS estimates that 13% of taxes that are owed are never paid, totaling $171 billion in the typical year. For comparison, Americans lost $9.4 billion to property theft in 2019 according to FBI data.
If we assume that underreporting means the actual property theft number is three times higher than $9.4b, tax evasion is responsible for *six times* more lost money than all shoplifting, car thefts, robberies, and burglaries combined.
High-profile police killings in the United States have drawn attention to how municipalities generate revenue through citations and arrests. This article investigates whether killings by police are more frequent in places that rely on fine-and-fee revenue by first describing the types of municipalities that collect the most money from monetary sanctions. It then analyzes whether fine-and-fee reliance and a municipality’s status as urban, suburban, or rural are associated with police killings. Descriptive statistics and negative binomial models reveal that suburbs with large Black populations rely the most on fine-and-fee revenue and police killings are higher in central cities than suburbs or rural towns. Cross-sectional and longitudinal regression models find that municipalities that rely more on fines and fees have more police killings, suggesting municipal fiscal imperatives influence police violence.
Thankfully, gun violence appears to be dropping nationwide, as shown in Year-to-Date city-level data compiled by @[email protected]. Definitely recommend checking out his post on Substack. https://jasher.substack.com/p/gun-violence-2022
🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/Data_David1/status/1603396260567957505
Jeff Asher