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The Secret IRS Files

The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax

ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.

by Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel

The NYPD Files

The Inside Story of How de Blasio Promised, Then Thwarted NYPD Accountability

Bill de Blasio once pledged powerful oversight of the police. Then he became mayor. Insiders reveal what happened next.

by Eric Umansky and Jake Pearson

The Secret IRS Files

ProPublica’s Tax Revelations Lead to Calls for Reforms — and Investigation

The Secret IRS Files series has already sparked a conversation about the fairness of the U.S. tax code and raised privacy concerns.

by Robert Faturechi

ProPublica a Finalist for Pulitzer Gold Medal

The designation is ProPublica’s 13th Pulitzer finalist in 13 years of publishing.

by ProPublica

COVID-19

Featured Reporting on the Crisis

An Online Lender Gave Hundreds of PPP Loans to Fake Farms. Now Congress Is Investigating.

A House committee has opened a probe into loans by Kabbage and other fintech companies after ProPublica reported that millions had gone to businesses that do not exist.

by Derek Willis and Lydia DePillis

A Crisis of Undiagnosed Cancers Is Emerging in the Pandemic’s Second Year

A factory worker didn’t want to call in sick or catch COVID-19, so she tried to ignore the pain. Now she has stage 4 cancer.

by Duaa Eldeib, video by Alex Garcia

Resources

Coronavirus Contracts: Tracking Federal Purchases to Fight the Pandemic

Tracking PPP Loans: Search Every Company Approved for Federal Loans

What Coronavirus Job Losses Reveal About Racism in America

After NYPD Found “No Wrongdoing” in Officer’s Killing of Kawaski Trawick, a Watchdog Finds Fireable Offenses

New York City’s police oversight agency brought disciplinary charges against the officer who killed Kawaski Trawick. While the NYPD found no wrongdoing, ProPublica published footage showing it was the cops who escalated the situation.

by Eric Umansky

ProPublica Wins Five National Magazine Awards

by ProPublica

“I Finally Got to the Mountaintop and I Failed”

Hershey profits benefit a boarding school that spends lavishly on its low-income students. But that investment comes with strings attached — leaving some students behind and others mired in debt.

by Bob Fernandez, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Charlotte Keith, Spotlight PA

After Grace’s Story, Michigan Will Study Its Juvenile Justice System

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appointed a task force to examine the state’s juvenile justice system and recommend reforms after a Black teen was jailed for not doing her online coursework.

by Jodi S. Cohen, ProPublica, and Dave Boucher, Detroit Free Press

Oregon House Moves to Curb Forest Institute’s Power and Budget

After our investigation found that a tax-funded institute acted as a lobbying arm for the timber industry, Oregon lawmakers passed a bill that would significantly cut the institute’s funding and redirect the money to climate science.

by Rob Davis, The Oregonian/OregonLive, and Tony Schick, OPB

The Bureau of Indian Education Hasn’t Told the Public How Its Schools Are Performing. So We Did It Instead.

New data shows Bureau of Indian Education schools do not teach kids fast enough to close an achievement gap that starts in early childhood.

by Alden Woods, The Arizona Republic, and Agnel Philip, ProPublica

How We Analyzed the Performance of Bureau of Indian Education Schools

The federal agency that funds 180 schools for Native American students has failed to tell the public how its schools compare. Our analysis fills in the gap.

by Agnel Philip, ProPublica, and Alden Woods, The Arizona Republic

Amid Calls for Reform, Maine’s Criminal Defense System Reaches a “Breaking Point”

As the Maine legislature considers a cash infusion to its public defense system, the state’s governor has yet to signal approval of the proposal, which critics say is not enough to fix the struggling agency.

by Samantha Hogan, The Maine Monitor

The Secret IRS Files Short Form: A Quick Guide to What We Uncovered

10 important takeaways from ProPublica’s first report on a vast collection of tax records for America’s wealthiest.

by ProPublica

How We Calculated the True Tax Rates of the Wealthiest

ProPublica started with a trove of private tax data — then analyzed those records, along with sources ranging from Forbes’ list of billionaires to publicly available information from the IRS, the Federal Reserve and more.

by Jeff Ernsthausen, Paul Kiel and Jesse Eisinger

The Government Is Here to Help Small Businesses — Unless They’re Cooperatives

The Small Business Administration’s rules prevent it from helping most employee- and consumer-owned cooperatives, even though Congress specifically asked it to. The result? Co-ops are largely cut out of the mainstream financial system.

by Lydia DePillis

There Have Been Huge Gaps in FBI Hate Crime Data for Years. A New Law Aims to Fix That.

A lack of reliable hate crime data has left authorities with neither a complete understanding of such incidents nor the tools needed to address them, ProPublica reported. A bill Biden just signed will start to address that.

by Ken Schwencke

ProPublica Seeks New Applicants for Its Local Reporting Network

We will be working with six more newsrooms on local accountability projects for a year starting in September 2021.

by ProPublica

ProPublica Hires Alexandra Berzon to Cover Risks to Democracy

by ProPublica

“A Horror Movie in Reverse”: How I Investigated Decades of Untested Rape Kits

Reporter Catherine Rentz goes behind the scenes of her serialized investigation into the outrage and promise of untested DNA from rape victims.

by Catherine Rentz

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