“We have no reason to think that this is a result of intentional discrimination, as the IRS does not observe race and the vast majority of these audits are conducted by mail,” Daniel Ho, a law professor and director of Stanford’s Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab, where the study originated, wrote in an email to Accounting Today. “While we do not have access to IRS’s exact selection protocols, we show that a focus on refundable credits can in fact drive this disparity. Our models show that if the IRS treated dollars evaded equally—regardless of whether from eligibility for refundable credits or underreporting of high income—the disparity would reduce substantially.”