Paul Kiel covers business and consumer finance for ProPublica.
In recent years, he’s focused on the U.S. tax system. The Secret IRS Files, which involved a team of ProPublica reporters, revealed key ways the ultrawealthy avoid taxes. Before that, he worked on The TurboTax Trap and Gutting the IRS investigations.
He has won numerous awards, including the Selden Ring Award, a Gerald Loeb Award, a Barlett & Steele Award, a Scripps Howard Award twice, a Hillman Prize, and a Philip Meyer Award from Investigative Reporters and Editors.
His work has appeared in several newspapers, including The Washington Post and The New York Times. He has also produced stories for National Public Radio and American Public Media’s Marketplace, as well as appeared on This American Life.
In letters to the IRS and the FTC, the senators are seeking inquiries into whether the companies have deceived customers and violated restraint-of-trade laws.
Si usted reclama el crédito por ingreso del trabajo (Earned Income Tax Credit – EITC), cuyo beneficiario promedio gana menos de $20,000 dólares anuales, tiene una mayor probabilidad de enfrentarse a un escrutinio de parte del IRS comparado con alguien que gane veinte veces más. ¿Cómo es que un beneficio para los trabajadores pobres se ha estado ejecutando en contra de ellos?
An internal document and current and former company employees show the companies steered customers away from the government-sponsored free option and made them pay.
For many people, filing for bankruptcy is a luxury that’s out of reach. A new report by the primary bankruptcy professional organization is full of recommendations that, if implemented, could help change that.
Following up on ProPublica stories about the IRS, lawmakers pressed the commissioner on the agency’s disproportionate focus on auditing the working poor while examinations of the rich plummeted.
Why are the rural poor audited more frequently than other groups, he asks, citing ProPublica. Another Democratic senator adds, “There are two tax codes in America, and there are also two enforcement regimes.”
Ten years ago, the tax agency formed a special team to unravel the complex tax-lowering strategies of the nation’s wealthiest people. But with big money — and Congress — arrayed against the team, it never had a chance.
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and three fellow senators say the agency should do more to tackle financial crimes, even in the face of crippling budget cuts.
If you claim the earned income tax credit, whose average recipient makes less than $20,000 a year, you’re more likely to face IRS scrutiny than someone making twenty times as much. How a benefit for the working poor was turned against them.
An eight-year campaign to slash the agency’s budget has left it understaffed, hamstrung and operating with archaic equipment. The result: billions less to fund the government. That’s good news for corporations and the wealthy.
Millions of low-income families rely on the earned income tax credit. We took an IRS audit notice sent to one taxpayer who’d claimed the EITC and annotated it to help explain what it really means.
In the latest sign that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is pulling back from aggressive enforcement, it dropped an investigation triggered by a 2013 ProPublica story about a lender that charges triple-digit interest rates.
En la principal ciudad de California, estafadores se aprovechan de propietarios que arriesgan perder sus hogares. Los latinos son uno de los grupos más afectados.
Los Angeles is the nation’s hub for bankruptcy crime. Scammers prey on struggling homeowners with little fear of getting caught, because criminal enforcement of bankruptcy laws is rare.
The story detailed how the city’s poor black residents are steered into bankruptcy plans they are doomed to fail. Two City Council members are looking at a series of solutions to address the underlying problems.
For years, an Equifax policy has treated some Chapter 13 filers differently than the other two major credit rating agencies. After ProPublica asked about it, the company said it would change the policy.
Thank you for your interest in republishing this story. You are are free to republish it so long as you do the following:
You have to credit ProPublica and any co-reporting partners. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Publication(s).” At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by ProPublica.” You must link the word “ProPublica” to the original URL of the story.
If you’re republishing online, you must link to the URL of this story on propublica.org, include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up language and link, and use our PixelPing tag.
If you use canonical metadata, please use the ProPublica URL. For more information about canonical metadata, refer to this Google SEO link.
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)
You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission. Please contact [email protected].
It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. You can’t state or imply that donations to your organization support ProPublica’s work.
You can’t sell our material separately or syndicate it. This includes publishing or syndicating our work on platforms or apps such as Apple News, Google News, etc.
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. (To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, contact [email protected].)
You can’t use our work to populate a website designed to improve rankings on search engines or solely to gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
We do not generally permit translation of our stories into another language.
Any website our stories appear on must include a prominent and effective way to contact you.
If you share republished stories on social media, we’d appreciate being tagged in your posts. We have official accounts for ProPublica on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Copy and paste the following into your page to republish:
