|
Junkie
|
Let's stop putting out the strawman that they don't pay taxes! It is a complete lie. Most illegals have a fake SS number, or have overstayed there visa and have a real SS number.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniont...1e10ruben.html
Quote:
If Americans ever succeeded in getting rid of illegal immigrants – deporting those who are already here and preventing the entry of others – there would be an outcry from Latino activists, civil libertarians and the business community.
But that's nothing. Do you know who might really be furious? The Social Security Administration. If not for the billions in payroll taxes that illegal immigrants are paying into the system, the funding crisis facing Social Security would be much more serious and much more imminent. It is all thanks to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which made it a crime for employers to knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
True, the law is a joke that is rarely enforced, and that should bother the law-and-order crowd more than it does. But by forcing employers to require Social Security cards – even bogus ones – IRCA did manage to rope illegal immigrants into the system. Last year, contributions by illegal immigrants made up about 10 percent of the Social Security surplus – the difference between what the system takes in and what it doles out.
According to a recent story in The New York Times, the numbers are startling. But they help explain why the U.S. government has tolerated illegal immigration for so long. It's the same reason that someone visiting Las Vegas tolerates a slot machine spewing out silver dollars.
Here's the drill: People enter the country illegally, promptly procure bogus Social Security cards from the black market, and use them to get jobs. Eventually they get paid, and those earnings generate W-2s that go to the Social Security Administration, which tucks them away in something called the "earnings suspense file." (The government does try to notify some of the larger employers that Social Security cards they've accepted appear to be phony, but that's about the extent of its efforts to figure out where all this money is coming from.) According to the best estimates of the Social Security Administration, the fund has kept track over the last 20 years of more than $300 billion in total earnings – the vast majority of them attributable to illegal immigrants.
Three-hundred billion dollars! You have to admit that's pretty impressive in a country where no one will admit to actually hiring illegal immigrants in the first place.
But those are just the figures in a ledger. The hard currency is the Social Security taxes that illegal immigrants and their employers pay on those earnings. That rings in at about $7 billion a year. Which is why you don't hear the Social Security Administration raising a fuss over illegal immigration. And to the degree that this arm of the U.S. government has friends in Congress, it could explain why you don't see many pieces of legislation calling for mass deportations of illegal immigrants. I mean, why kill the golden goose?
There is a whole separate discussion about what we should do with this money. Some would use the funds to reimburse local schools and hospitals for services they provide to illegal immigrants. President Bush has the best idea: We should leave the money alone. Why? Well, simply put: Because it's not ours. It belongs to the people who earned it, even if they earned it using fake documents. After all, the fact that the documents were phony didn't stop the employer – the homebuilder, farmer or whatever – from using the labor at what was presumably an inexpensive rate so that he could profit. Why shouldn't workers profit from their own labor to the greatest degree possible?
And so perhaps the most promising element of President Bush's plan to reform the immigration system is his idea to, from this point forward, create 401(k)-type accounts where Mexican immigrant workers could invest part of their earnings. There the money would sit until the workers returned to Mexico, at which point they could draw it out. Bush's plan would put an end to the current system, and that's what hard-line conservatives hate about it. They're basically admitting that Social Security needs to rely on ill-gotten goods just to stay afloat.
It's amazing. Some of the same people who are constantly complaining about how illegal immigrants are the ruin of the civilization, including some Republicans in Congress, have no more qualms about letting them continue to prop up Social Security.
And people wonder why we have so much illegal immigration. Not me. I wonder why we don't have more of it.
|
Of course those that don't have SS numbers can still use a little known program to pay taxes and some do!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in549153.shtml
Quote:
AP) Ernesto Cuellar filed his taxes this year not just to report what he made from his $9-an-hour job as a house painter, but also, he hopes, to speed his path to becoming a legal resident of the United States.
Cuellar submitted his federal return using an increasingly popular tax number issued by the Internal Revenue Service to people who can't get Social Security numbers. Many, like Cuellar, are undocumented immigrants, causing concern among critics of U.S. immigration policy.
"By paying taxes, the government will be able to see that immigrants are contributing to the economy," said Cuellar, 35, who came from Mexico almost five years ago and now lives in San Francisco. "That record will hopefully help me in the future, as proof that I've been complying and filing" taxes.
The IRS has issued more than 6.8 million of the individual taxpayer identification numbers since 1996. Last year, it gave out almost 1.5 million, about 58 percent more than in 2000.
The government doesn't track how many undocumented immigrants have been issued the nine-digit numbers, and officials note that not everyone who seeks one is undocumented. Some are foreign students or researchers who are in the country under temporary, legal visas. By law, the agency is barred from routinely sharing data on taxpayers with federal immigration officials.
At the Midwest Tax Clinic in Chicago, director Salvador Gonzalez said about 150 people have come in and applied for the numbers in the last two years. Another 1,000 have applied at churches and community centers where the clinic reaches out to local residents.
"A lot of people, they want to become bona fide taxpayers," Gonzalez said.
The tax numbers also are being used for purposes beyond their original intent, to help people open bank accounts and get driver's licenses in some states.
That's put the IRS numbers in the middle of a debate over what to do about the estimated 9 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Advocates say allowing them to get financial services and drive legally makes communities safer for everyone. But critics argue the tax number just makes it easier for illegal immigrants, who shouldn't be in the United States in the first place, to meld into society.
Marti Dinerstein, president of the New York-based public policy firm Immigration Matters, said the numbers should be used for tax purposes only.
"I really don't think it is a smart thing for local and state governments to make it easier for illegal immigrants to reside and work and therefore stay in the United States," Dinerstein said. "It shows a total disrespect for the laws of the United States."
About 366,000 returns were filed using individual taxpayer identification numbers in 2001, according to IRS data from that year, the most recent information available. People with the tax numbers reported wages of almost $7 billion and paid almost $305 million in taxes, according to the IRS.
Wells Fargo Bank, Citibank and Washington Mutual already accept the numbers from people who want to open bank accounts.
"You've got undocumented workers here. Let's face it, they're going to be here and they take the jobs that no one else wants," said Chi Chi Wu, staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. "If they're going to be here, we'd rather have them in bank accounts than carrying around a lot of cash and being targeted for robbery and theft."
Wu hopes the IRS number will be used in the future to help make more financial services, such as mortgages or other loans, available to undocumented immigrants.
Utah, Rhode Island and North Carolina are among the states that accept the tax number from people applying for driver's licenses, and New Mexico recently passed a law to accept it starting this summer. Similar proposals are being considered in California and Illinois.
The number's popularity indicates how the nation's immigration policies have failed, said Michele Waslin, senior immigration policy analyst at the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group.
"Really, what banks and state and local governments have had to do is come up with creative solutions dealing with people who are living in the community," she said.
|
So lets see what illegals pay:
Do Illegals pay consumer taxes? Yes
Do Illegals pay property taxes? Yes (if they own property)
Do Illegals pay SS tax? Some do (if they are not working under the table)
Do Illegals who are working under the table pay SS? Some do
Illegals pay SS and medicaid but don't qualify for them! They pay consumer taxes which in many cases are the primary fund for education. I would bet there is more money lost due to unpaid taxes each year from US citizens working under the table than illegal immigrants. |