Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America

William Ayers plays basketball with his foster children, Kayden Pam, center, and Jamaine Pittman in the backyard of his home in Greenville, Miss. Thursday, April 11, 2019.

Editor’s note: This story first published on April 17, 2019, but has been recirculated this week after The New York Times obtained and published information about many of President Donald Trump’s tax returns. You can find all of Mississippi Today’s coverage of poverty, class and economic justice here.

Last summer, William Ayers received a letter in the mail — it was registered and required a signature, suggesting its contents.

“Ah, that’s the IRS,” Ayers, 58, recalls thinking. “Here we go again.”

Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America

William Ayers discusses being audited while sitting in his living room in Greenville, Miss., Thursday, April 11, 2019.

Ayers works in a Leland furniture factory, where he upholsters hospital furniture and earns roughly $27,000 a year. Across the U.S. each year, less than one percent of taxpayers — 0.77 percent — face an income tax audit.

This was the fourth time in the last two decades that the Internal Revenue Service had audited Ayers’ tax return, he said, asking for myriad documents many families don’t maintain.

Ayers said his experience is partly why it’s no surprise to him that the Mississippi Delta, one of the nation’s poorest regions, has among the highest rates of IRS income tax audits in the country.

Humphreys County — home to a town of 2,200 called Belzoni (pronounced bel-ZO-nuh), dubbed both the “Catfish Capital” and “Heart of the Delta” and where four out of ten people live in poverty — is the single most heavily audited county in the nation, according to a recent ProPublica report.

Ayers, a Greenville father of five, plus many more foster children over the years, claims the Earned Income Tax Credit, a federal end-of-year financial boost for working class families designed in the 1970’s as an alternative to welfare.

Because he qualifies for this benefit, which varies by amount depending on family size, he’s twice as likely to be audited by the IRS than people who make more than 10 times his salary, according to a ProPublica analysis of IRS data.

“It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem efficient from the government’s standpoint,” said Ben Wilkerson, an attorney with North Mississippi Rural Legal Services.

Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America

Belzoni, Miss. Thursday, April 11, 2019.

The only county in Mississippi where people are audited less frequently than the national average is Rankin County, the state’s second wealthiest county and where many of the state’s top leaders, including a congressman, the governor and lieutenant governor, call home. Nearly 12 out of every 1,000 taxpayers in Humphreys County are audited, compared to fewer than eight out of 1,000 in Rankin County.

Washington County, just west of Humphreys and where Greenville is located, has an audit rate of over 10 out of 1,000 and much of the same challenges, low incomes and few job opportunities, as the surrounding Delta. The populations in both Washington and Humphreys counties are also over 70 percent African American.

The IRS, through a written statement, maintains the agency enforces tax laws “with integrity and fairness to all.”

The government’s intense examination of working families who claim the earned income tax credit — designed to reward work — parallels experiences of low-income people applying for other benefits, such as food assistance, child care vouchers and cash assistance.

“It’s like they’re giving the credit and want to take it back,” said Latoya Skinner of Tax Genie, a tax preparation service in Belzoni. “You designed it for the low income (people), now you want to scrutinize them because they’re getting it.”

Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America

Tax Genie owner Latoya Skinner, left, and Teresa D. Taylor-Williams discuss why Humphreys County is the most heavily audited county in the nation Thursday, April 11, 2019 in Belzoni, Miss.

But there are deeper reasons why poor, rural communities may face more inquiries and, on top of that, have a tougher time answering them.

The Delta has “old school” landlords, Skinner explained, who don’t prepare leases for tenants and accept rent payments in cash. In an area lacking industry and employers, many workers conduct odd jobs for cash, enterprises with little official documentation of income.

For people who move frequently, addresses recorded with employers, schools or medical providers may not match, making it difficult to prove a child’s residency.

Add in the complexity of tax laws and low-wage workers’ acute reliance on lump sum tax returns to meet needs they’ve staved off all year, and it’s easy to see how mistakes can happen.

Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America

Belzoni “The Heart of the Delta,” located in Humphreys County, is the most audited county in the nation.

Ayers lives in a tidy, modest house with his wife, Dycia, and three foster kids, Kayden, Jaterrica, and Jamaine. In his living room, the walls are filled with framed computerized sketches of his kids and he built the furniture himself out of old wooden pallets.

This tax season, Ayers received a roughly $9,000 total refund, which he plans to stash away and dip into only to pay for visits with his grown children in Dallas or unexpected expenses. Otherwise, Ayers said his family lives virtually paycheck to paycheck.

The Earned Income Tax Credit lifts more than 9 million people, half of them children, above the poverty line every year. In Mississippi, consistently among the most impoverished states in the nation, one in six taxpayers who qualify don’t go after the credit.

Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America

William Ayers takes a look at a tax letter while at his home in Greenville, Miss. Thursday, April 11, 2019.

Ayers uses black reading glasses to examine a stack of papers generated throughout his last audit. In the first letter last July, the IRS said it had found a deficiency on his 2016 taxes and he owed the federal government $9,791. He must pay the debt, it said, or file a petition in court if he disagreed with its finding.

Ayers said it was like he was guilty until proven innocent. “That’s an intimidation tactic.”

Ayers sought the help of the IRS-sponsored program, the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic, that provides free legal services to low-income workers who are audited. Wilkerson, the tax attorney whose office is in Oxford, runs the only such clinic in Mississippi.

In 2017, Ayers’ tax preparer, a relative, incorrectly labeled him as “head of household,” which is reserved for non-married people with dependents. Ayers said he had no idea why that happened. The simple mistake likely triggered the audit that put his entire filing, including the legitimacy of his dependents, under question. Like with any audit, the records gathering process was cumbersome.

Ayers requested a letter from Child Protection Services to prove his guardianship over his foster children, but the IRS rejected it because it only included the date the children were placed in his home, not specifying that they’d been in the home all year. He had to obtain a second letter.

Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America

William Ayers is photographed with his children, from left, Kayden Pam, Jaterrica Pittman and Jamaine Pittman at their home in Greenville, Miss. Thursday, April 11, 2019.

“The biggest burden on me is the frustration, not being able to do the things you need to do with your money because you don’t know what you’re going to have to do with the IRS,” Ayers said. “It kind of puts you in a sticky situation with your money.”

Eight months later, his case is almost complete, Wilkerson said. Ayers not only no longer owes the IRS, he’s expected to receive a roughly $800 additional refund.

In past audits, Ayers did not have legal representation and was unable to produce documents proving answers on his tax return, such as his kids’ residency, so he got on a monthly payment plan to pay back thousands to the federal government.

“What I’ve seen is, if they cannot prove the audit, instead of them going for an appeal, they let it go,” Skinner said. “It’s just a lack of knowledge. They don’t realize they can appeal it. They don’t realize they can get more time and try to gather these documents.”

Some taxpayers who get audited feel discouraged and may choose not to file their taxes in the coming years, Skinner explained, meaning they’ll never get the refunds the government owes them. “They’ll just say, ‘Forget it, I’m already poor.’”

Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America

Travis Jones is photographed at his thrift store Thursday, April 11, 2019 in Belzoni, Miss.

Skinner said taxpayers and even some preparers are largely uneducated about IRS processes and what documentation the agency requires. With thousands of dollars on the line, anxieties are high at the start of tax season.

The amount of this year’s Earned Income Tax Credit ranges from $529 for a person with no children to $6,557 for a taxpayer with three children.

To qualify, a filer must earn under a specified annual income, from $15,270 to $54,884 depending on the filer’s marital status and how many children are in the home. The taxpayer must then produce a series of records to prove their relationship to their dependent and their dependent’s residency, such as birth certificates, school, medical, daycare or social service records or official letters from those entities.

Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America

Rural Legal Services Tax attorney Ben Wilkerson discusses audits at his office in Oxford, Miss. Thursday, April 11, 2019.

Skinner said some common filing scenarios send up red flags to the IRS, such as when two separated adults claim their child as a dependent in two different homes or when someone other than a parent, such as an aunt, uncle or grandparent is a child’s primary caretaker.

Because the credit only increases in amount up to three children, Skinner said, a parent might allow their relative to claim their fourth or fifth child as a dependent. That other adult might have legitimately assisted with the family’s expenses, so the tax filing feels honest, Skinner said, but a taxpayer is not supposed to claim a dependent unless the person lived in their home.

If a taxpayer took care of a dependent and therefore earned the benefit, but lacked documentation to prove it, they’re technically ineligible. Some lose out on money they earned simply due to poor record-keeping.

“If the people knew, they probably would do better. And some of them probably still won’t do better,” Skinner said.

Tax return errors are not limited to the legitimacy of dependents. Every year, people visit the Tax Genie asking to file their taxes using their last pay stub before they’ve received a W-2, the document employers send both the IRS and employees, which reflects their official annual earnings. This can lead to discrepancies between the taxpayer’s filing and paperwork the IRS already possesses.

“They’re depending on their taxes, so as soon as the IRS open up the gates, they’re running to somebody who can use a last check stub,” Skinner said. “And if you say you don’t know how to do it, they’re going to go get on the computer and they’re going to put it in themselves.”

Wilkerson said some preparers may also be tempted to tweak numbers in their clients’ returns to maximize the amount they get in earned income credit, especially if they receive a commission on the refund.

Belzoni Mayor Carol Ivy told Mississippi Today she chalks up Humphreys County’s high audit rate to tax fraud in the area. “It’s everywhere … The people are not truthful with their income tax. They’re not,” Ivy said.

Wilkerson takes issue with the mayor’s characterization: “Fraud is kind of a strong word,” he said. “I would say it’s more optimistic thinking.”

At the same time, Ivy said it doesn’t make sense that the U.S.’s poorest taxpayers should face more audits than folks earning several hundred thousand dollars a year. “Everybody should be audited,” Ivy said.

Any of these scenarios are compounded by the existing conditions of a community where the average household earns $23,000 and the unemployment rate of 10.2 percent is more than double the statewide average.

Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America

Roddy Berry sits on a bench in Belzoni, Miss., Thursday, April 11, 2019. Humphreys County, where Belzoni is located, is the most audited county in the nation, according to a recent ProPublica report.

Skinner estimates half the taxpayers in the area are self-employed, which includes the operators of the car wash down the street from her office.

Residents’ low earnings also sometimes cause suspicion, Skinner added.

“I’ve even been told by an IRS examiner before, ‘How are they head of household with this little money?’” Skinner said.

Take a single parent raising her children with an annual income of $5,000. Skinner points out that $5,000 is enough to pay $350 in rent every month for a year, which may satisfy half the household’s expenses, qualifying them as the head of household.

Skinner said in this way, the IRS discriminates against communities it doesn’t understand.

Mississippi Today asked the IRS for an interview to discuss how the agency ensures its inquiries do not target low-income or minority populations. In a written statement, the IRS said its process for selecting who to audit “is designed to select returns with the highest likelihood of noncompliance” using a “systemic risk-based scoring criteria.”

“(F)airness and integrity are built into the foundation of our return selection process,” the statement reads. “The selection criteria does not include any components or factors related to the geographic location or ethnicity of the taxpayers.”

Ayers looks at the IRS audit trend through the lens of his family’s history. His father, Jake Ayers, helped organize during the Civil Rights Movement and even brought the successful suit against the state board of education over Mississippi’s segregated public university system in the late 1980’s.

It’s easier, he said, for him to connect the dots.

“Minorities, low-income people, I feel like they’re always getting a raw deal from the government and government officials,” Ayers said. “They’re easiest to step on. They’re more vulnerable than other people.”

The post ‘They’re easiest to step on’: The real reason why families in the Delta, one of the nation’s poorest regions, are also the most audited by the IRS appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi State quarterback K.J. Costello threw for 623 yards at LSU on Saturday. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Eager Mississippi football fans had waited months for the coaching debuts of Mike Leach at Mississippi State and Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss.

And while both famous coaches had their moments Saturday, the day belonged to Leach, his new quarterback K.J. Costello and the Mississippi State Bulldogs. All they did was set school and Southeastern Conference passing records en route to a 44-34 victory over defending national champion LSU at Baton Rouge.

“Better than average,” Leach deadpanned, and Leach is most assuredly the master of deadpans.

With Costello throwing an array of lovely passes for a stunning 623 yards, State defeated the nation’s sixth-ranked team and is certain to rise high up into college football’s Top 25. The Southeastern Conference is in its 87^th season of football, and it took Leach’s Air Raid offense just one game to set the league’s single game passing record.

Earlier in the day, Ole Miss put up a whopping 617 yards of total offense against fifth-ranked Florida, but the Rebels were virtually defense-less against the Gators and wound up on the short end of a 51-35 decision. Kiffin’s imaginative Ole Miss offense will score lots and lots of points this season, but the Rebel defense must improve dramatically for all those yards and points to translate into many victories.

Rick Cleveland

Let’s put it this way: The over/under betting number for the Egg Bowl might be 90, maybe more.

I’ll just go ahead and throw this out there: Florida is a lot better football team than LSU presently. I don’t care who you are, you don’t lose 14 NFL draft picks, including five first rounders, the Heisman Trophy winner, your defensive coordinator, five other players who signed free agent contracts, your passing game coach — you don’t lose all that and just keep on keeping on.

LSU was also missing its best cover cornerback, All American Derek Stingley, Jr., who was ill. That would hurt you against anybody, but against Leach and Costello and the Air Raid offense, Stingley was especially missed. The Tigers stubbornly continued to play press man-to-man coverage against the Bulldogs and Costello picked it apart. Receivers were open and Costello, both accurate and resourceful, hit them in stride.

That said, the biggest difference between Mississippi State and Ole Miss Saturday was on the defensive side of the ball. There, Leach has inherited more SEC-caliber players than Kiffin, especially in the front seven.

State limited LSU’s normally strong running game to 2.1 yards per rush. The Bulldogs sacked Tiger quarterback Myles Brennen seven times.

Meanwhile, at Oxford, Ole Miss often looked defense-less. Florida threw for 442 yards and ran for nearly 200. The Gators averaged nearly nine yards per play. “Video game numbers,” Kiffin called the Gators offensive stats, and they were.

But this wasn’t a lack of defensive scheming. This wasn’t coaching. This wasn’t Xs and Os. It was, as they say, Jimmys and Joes. Seems like we’ve been writing this for years now, but Ole Miss simply has to get better, bigger and faster on that side of the ball.

Offensively, the Rebels are fun. They have many, many weapons, including wide receiver Elijah Moore, who caught 10 passes for a whopping 227 yards. Those are video game numbers, too. Quarterback Matt Corral threw for 395 yards. Running back Jerrion Ealy produced 161 yards running, receiving and kick returning. Receiver Dontario Drummond threw one pass for 45 yards and caught two more for 60 yards. Transfer tight end Kenny Yeboah is still another weapon.

But again, the first big day in this weird football season belonged to Mississippi State. Think about all the factors: New coach, new quarterback, new offense, new defensive coordinator, no spring training, first game on the road against the defending national champion in a national network broadcast.

Yes, and every time those CBS cameras focused on Leach along the Mississippi State sideline, he seemed to be taking it in as if he were picking out produce at the market.

“Better than average,” he would later say.

Well, yeah.

The post On a ‘video game numbers’ kind of day, State, Leach, Costello stole the show appeared first on Mississippi Today.

How Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death may affect the U.S. Senate race in Mississippi. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Mike Espy, like most Democratic Senate candidates across the nation, has significantly benefitted from campaign contributions following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and as a Senate fight looms over filling the court seat she left vacant.

But whether that fight will help Espy win a Senate election here in Mississippi remains to be seen.

The death of Ginsburg and soon after the release of a poll showing Espy within one percentage point of incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith have focused attention on a Mississippi race that to a large extent had been overlooked by the national and state media. It should be stressed that the poll, by the Tyson Group, was conducted in late August before the death of Ginsburg.

But during about a four day period after Ginsburg’s death, Espy received more than $1 million in campaign donations — a record amount for his campaign and enough to ensure he is at least financially competitive with Hyde-Smith ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

The fundraising was fueled by Democrats and others who believe that President Donald Trump should not get to nominate a new justice before voters decide days later whether he will serve another four years as president, and that a Republican Senate should not confirm a replacement for Ginsburg until January when a new Senate term begins.

The death of Ginsburg, the best-known member of the Supreme Court, has evoked passion by Democrats on the issue of filling federal court vacancies. Passion on that issue had been primarily on the side of Republicans in past elections.

While an argument could be made that this passion could benefit Democrats in Senate races in many parts of the country, it is not so clear what the impact will be in Mississippi.

“This is an important issue for both parties,” said Nathan Shrader, chair of the Department of Government and Politics at Millsaps College. “I think in Mississippi this could benefit Cindy Hyde-Smith. It is another opportunity for her to say a vote for her is a vote for Donald Trump.”

Based on polling, it would appear Mississippians would support a Trump nominee who would help overturn Supreme Court rulings that have made abortion legal throughout the nation.

But many Mississippians might not be so enamored with a Trump nominee, who in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic could help to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare,” that provides health care coverage to about 100,000 people in the state and provides protection for pre-existing conditions to about 600,000 Mississippians.

Theoretically, a new justice appointed by Trump could be serving on Nov. 10, when his administration argues before the Supreme Court the ACA should be overturned. It is safe to assume that new nominee would side with Trump on overturning the health care law. Hyde-Smith also supports overturning the ACA. Both Trump and Hyde-Smith have said they support protecting people with pre-existing conditions, but they have not yet provided a plan that health care groups say would guarantee insurance companies provide coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. In addition, they have yet to offer a comprehensive and workable plan to provide coverage to the tens of thousands Mississippians who have health care coverage through the ACA.

Espy already has said he wants to make this election about health care.

“This is the No. 1 issue for the Espy campaign,” Espy said. “It is the No. 1 issue in Mississippi.”

Granted, the health care argument as it relates to the Supreme Court is more nuanced than the abortion argument. But Espy now has the money to broadly make that argument.

On the issue of abortion, a 2014 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 59% of Mississippians support making abortion illegal in most/all instances, while 36% favor making it legal in most/all instances. A more recent April 2019 poll conducted by Mississippi-based Chism Strategies for Millsaps College found that 43% of the respondents said the issue of abortion should be left up to the woman and her health care provider.

Mississippians also feel strongly about health care. Another Chism/Millsaps Poll released in January found 70% of Mississippians were concerned about being able to afford health care. A case could be made that the demise of the ACA could further worry many Mississippians who are concerned about health care affordability. Both sides can make arguments on how a new Trump appointee would be good or bad for Mississippians.

The biggest factor in the November election for the U.S. Senate seat in Mississippi could boil down to whether voters are more concerned about abortion or about health care more broadly.

The post How might the Ginsburg death affect the Senate race in Mississippi? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

‘Just enough of the right stuff’: Why Mississippi’s COVID-19 numbers are flattening

By Erica Hensley | Sept. 25, 2020

After a steep summer climb in coronavirus cases, Mississippi’s average daily numbers are at the lowest point in three months.

How fast the virus spreads in an area is a function of many things, but they all revolve around behavior and math. Virus transmission boils down to a numbers game — when fewer people have and spread the virus, transmission thins out, helping to flatten the curve over time. The idea of flattening the curve has never been about stopping spread, but reducing that spread over time so health systems are not overwhelmed. Spread is inevitable — it’s limiting and containing transmission that drives infectious disease mitigation strategies.

State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs said Wednesday that statewide efforts to reduce spread since the late July peak are paying off, but new challenges will arise.

“We’re very pleased that we’ve seen this fall trend go so well thus far, knock on wood. The coronavirus I think is a little bit finicky and if you do just enough of the right stuff you can get that R-naught (reproduction) value less than one. And if you get it less than one, then you’re constantly driving it down — it’s just a matter of how fast you’re driving it down,” Dobbs said, adding the “combination of masks, a little bit better social distancing” and strict school policies have slowed the overall spread, though case clusters persist.

“We hope that everybody just keeps up the good work because I think we can continue to keep it down and get through the fall if we just maintain masking and distancing, especially as we go into the holidays, there will be those new challenges,” he said.

A pivotal piece to understanding transmission is the R-naught value that Dobbs referenced, often referred to as just R or the reproduction rate. Three months ago, when Mississippi was entering its summer case surge, the state’s R value was one of the highest in the nation. Now, it’s one of the lowest.

The reproduction rate is just one measure of how the virus is spreading, similar to doubling time. It measures the average number of people infected by each initial infection, representing how much the disease is spreading. If the value is under one, spread is more limited and easier to contain. Above one signifies more uncontrolled spread, meaning infected people are each spreading to more people.

Mississippi’s R hit its lowest point ever exactly two weeks after Gov. Tate Reeves ordered a statewide mask mandate. On August 19 the state’s R dipped to .88 — meaning on average, each person with COVID-19 spread it to less than one person. It has since crept up slightly, but still hovers below one.

Though the state’s number of daily new cases has trended down since late-July, Mississippi still has the third most total cases per capita as of Thursday, at 3,202 per 100,000 people — only behind Louisiana and Florida. The state also has the seventh most total COVID-19 deaths per capita, at 97 per 100,000 people, and the nation’s highest recent death rate, at four per capita over the past week.

R has long been used by infectious disease experts, who say, like all COVID-19 metrics, it’s imperfect, often misunderstood and shouldn’t be used as a guiding star because it misses granular detail, like outbreaks and local spread. If cases are spreading drastically in one area due to a cluster, but tapering off in others where regulations are perhaps more strictly adhered to, the R average could cancel each of those out and paint an imprecise picture. Overall though, it helps gauge how much the virus is spreading across a state.

Importantly, according to those who track and model disease spread, R measures how widespread the virus is, not how fast it’s spreading. Too, R doesn’t calculate why or how infection spreads, such as if people are just more contagious, like a cluster of severe cases, or if their behavior is more risky, like socializing in crowded, indoor areas. That’s where contact tracing comes in.

R is only a piece of the puzzle, and needs to be dovetailed with other disease-tracking pieces to be effective, researchers say. Robust contact tracing, diagnostic and surveillance testing — to catch both active and asymptomatic infections, and spread mitigation efforts, like masks and social distancing, all need to work together to inform policy.

Researchers say R shouldn’t be used as a real-time policy-making tool, but more a lagging indicator — essentially, it can help officials look back at trends to see what worked.

Mississippi has been under a statewide mask mandate since early August, with the current order expiring September 30. Additional mandated restrictions to reduce spread include: Limiting arenas to 25% capacity and prohibiting tailgating, and 75% capacity for retail, restaurants and bars, and bars must close at 11 p.m..

Dobbs says schools’ strict adherence to COVID-19 guidelines have helped mitigate spread, and in turn kept new cases and the R value down. But outbreaks persist and threaten to reverse downward trends where folks continue to gather without masking and distancing, he said.

To date, schools have seen 2,400 cases total, with 382 new cases over the last week. Though statewide trends have improved, younger age groups still comprise a disproportionate share of all cases.

Dobbs says most schools have policies in place that are limiting spread once it is brought in. He praised universities for planning for and curbing the virus, though they have seen recent spikes and have varying approaches to containing spread.

“It’s social stuff that’s killing us as far as when we were having outbreaks. It’s parties, and it’s even small gatherings of people getting together,” he said. “If we look at schools settings, where we’re seeing most of our outbreaks and transmission, it’s not really going to be in these controlled structured settings within the classrooms, it seems mostly to be in athletics or extracurriculars where we know there’s going to be more chaotic movement and less control as far as where kids are and (are not) wearing the masks.”

Visit our data page for more Mississippi COVID-19 trends and school trends here.

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