Former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross, political advocate Angela Rye and former Democrat politician Andrew Gillum entertained the idea that Black people should be exempt from taxes as reparations on the “Native Land Podcast” Monday.
The three discussed actor Terrence Howard reportedly claiming it is “immoral for the United States government to charge taxes to the descendants of slaves” while being ordered to pay $903,115 in back taxes, penalties and interest.
While they recognized the unrealistic possibility of such a policy, Cross claimed that “this brother was making a legitimate point.”
She said, “We have never been paid. We have never had any reparations. We’ve never seen the benefits.”
“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,’” Cross said.
Cross also remarked that “when you consider the wealth that Black people created for this country,” they are owed some compensation for making the U.S. a “superpower.”
“If you’re in this tax bracket, if you are a descendant of the enslaved, then we will decrease your tax bracket,” Cross suggested.
“If we were the wealthy 1%, they would have come up with that rule for us already,” Gillum remarked.
The podcast also focused on tax evasion, with the three insisting that most of the people arrested for the crime are Black.
“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?” Rye asked.
Per court filings, Howard reportedly “denied owing anything” and “threatened to shame” the lead tax attorney “by posting the lawsuit against him on the internet.”
“Four hundred years of forced labor and never receiving any compensation for it,” the actor allegedly said in the voicemail. “Now you have the gall to try and prosecute and charge taxes to the descendants of a broken people that you are responsible for causing the breakage.”
Howard went on further, slamming the government for taking him to court.
“In truth, the entire United States should, by default, become the property of the descendants of slaves,” Howard said. “But since you do not have the ability [or] the courage to do it, let’s try this in court… We’re gonna bring you down.”
Howard’s comments emerged as more cities are forming task forces for tackling reparations for the descendants of slaves.
One San Francisco committee proposed that the city could owe as much as $5 million per Black resident, totaling over $100 billion in payments. This is more than seven times the annual budget of the California city.