“I don’t know how we would make this happen, but I would be completely down for some sort of policy that says, ‘Yes, you are exempt from paying taxes.’”
On Monday, former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross claimed that black people should be exempt from paying taxes due to their ancestors being enslaved, a suggestion that would come in the form of reparations.
Cross entertained the idea on the "Native Land Podcast." She appeared on an episode alongside former Democrat politician Andrew Gillum and progressive political activist Angela Rye. The two agreed with Cross that black people should be exempt, the New York Post reports.
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View on XThe three discussed Terrence Howard, an actor who was sentenced to pay $903,115 in unpaid taxes, fines, and interest, saying that it is "immoral for the United States government to charge taxes to the descendants of slaves."
They acknowledged that such a suggestion was improbable, but according to Cross, "this brother was making a legitimate point."
"We have never been paid. We have never had any reparations. We’ve never seen the benefits," said Cross.
"I don’t know how we would make this happen, but I would be completely down for some sort of policy that says, 'Yes, you are exempt from paying taxes,'" she said.
Cross went on to claim that the US became a "superpower" solely because of black people, saying that "when you consider the wealth that Black people created for this country" they should be compensated for it.
"If you’re in this tax bracket, if you are a descendant of the enslaved, then we will decrease your tax bracket," suggested Cross.
Gillum interjected and said: "If we were the wealthy 1 percent, they would have come up with that rule for us already."
Rye then chimed in and claimed that black people are disproportionately arrested for tax evasion.
"I can only think of tax evasion cases where black people are criminally prosecuted. I can’t think of no white folks, can y’all?" asked Rye.
Over the past few years, Democratic-run states and cities in the US, such as California, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, have publicly demonstrated their intention to use public funds to establish government-run Reparations committees and provide a sizable sum of money in the form of reparations to the descendants of slaves.
A committee in San Francisco suggested that the city would be responsible for paying over $100 billion in reparations, with each black resident potentially being worth up to $5 million. This exceeds the California city's annual budget by a factor of seven, per NYP.
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