Who should be afraid of audits? Working-class people, especially African Americans

In our commentariat there is a widely held belief that the only people who fear IRS audits are tax cheats.

An increasingly consistent Republican position:

Americans can have a little cheating on their taxes, as a treat. https://t.co/6nhDKf7Blp
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) August 8, 2022

It’s interesting that nobody seems to care or have noticed that the proposed aid to Israel has been indefinitely stalled in the House over GOP demands to help rich people cheat on their taxes.

The politics of this issue are 99% vibes.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) November 26, 2023

If you actually apply the worldview of Matts Fuller and Yglesias, African Americans are disproportionately tax cheats. That seems unlikely to me, and I don’t think the Matts would say that. But the Government Accountability Office recently noted research concluding that “Black taxpayers are audited at higher rates than taxpayers of other races” and that African Americans are disproportionately likely to lose their audits.