Posted on 11/28/2011 7:06:21 AM PST by safetysign
Established 15 years ago, the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number [ITIN] is a seemingly innocuous administrative requirement that the Internal Revenue Service assigns to anyone who is employed and pays taxes. According to the IRS website, the numbers are used for federal tax reporting only. But since ITINs, as they are commonly known, are issued to wage earners regardless of immigration status, theyve frequently been abused by the aliens who hold them.
Although the real estate crisis is fading from our memory, its important to recall that the ITIN was the vehicle used in lieu of Social Security numbers, which then legitimized the disastrous lending policy of providing home mortgages to unqualified illegal aliens. With bankers as their willing abettors, and while the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation purposely looked the other way, aliens took out home loans using ITINs as their major form of identification. Bankers, only too-eager to accommodate poverty-level applicants with balloon financing for homes they could barely make the first payment on, raked in big money. To the bankers, aliens represented the new market. Today, five years later, the nation is still reeling from the avalanche of foreclosures that followed.
For aliens, the ITIN is an extremely useful vehicle. Since the IRS isnt required to share its information with any other federal agency, including immigration authorities, the promise of intra-agency confidentiality allows aliens to file tax returns without fear of deportation. At the same time, holding an ITIN enables aliens to authenticate their presence in the United States and prove that they have paid taxes. This information could be crucial if Congress ever enacted an amnesty.
The ITINs improper use is once again in the news. The Federation for American Immigration Reform, in its recent analysis entitled Treasury Department Says Illegal Aliens Collection Billions in Tax Credits, revealed that according to the Department of Treasurys Inspector General, more than $4.2 billion in additional child credits were paid out in 2010 to illegal immigrants. In 2005, the pay outs totaled $924 million. This program allows low income earners to claim a $1,000 per child credit. If the household ends up with no additional tax obligationas most alien families do notthen $1,000 is paid to them.
Pursuant to the IG report, 72 percent of tax returns filed by ITIN users claimed this credit compared to just 14 percent of returns filed with social security numbers. The generous payment of these benefits represents yet another incentive for aliens to enter, reside and work in the United States without permission. Providing incentives to aliens, financial or otherwise, is against the law.
The ITIN is a sham that should be eliminated. The federal government knows that many ITIN users are illegally in the United States. Automatic acceptance of the ITIN without additional identification is tantamount to endorsing illegal immigration.
At a time when Congress and the president are struggling to find ways to cut trillions of dollars from federal spending, and while more than 14 million Americans are unemployed, its unconscionable for the IRS to ignore abuse of its ITIN program that results in billions of dollars in payments made to illegal aliens.
Don't you realize that some of these people have been in the USA for over 25 years or more, are members of their community, may be attending faithfully Iglesia Nuestra Madre de Sanctuario por Los Trabajadores Church, have family here from which they cannot be separated, even if their status of immigration is non-existent, ie illegal?
To post such an article with facts showing how this unfairly impacts us, is a little bit "heartless" and anti-family of you, now, isn't it!!???
/sarcasm
This is how it's done.
The root problem is the Government has broken its own rule - your SSN (or ITIN, or EIN) was never supposed to be used for identification purposes. See your Social Security card - it’s not for ID purposes at all. Yet it has become de-facto ID for who you are.
Eliminate the ability to use an SSN (or ITIN or EIN) for identification purposes - leave it only for SSN/tax purposes - and this whole issue goes away. No need to try to decode which 9 digit number is valid or not, none of them can be used to show/track who you are.
Subprime mortgages that went into foreclosure were mostly issued to illegal aliens or exploiting landlords housing illegal aliens. http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33821
The ITIN was the vehicle used by the likes of Countryside, Wachovia, and Bank of America to issue these loans to illegals, knowing they would be selling off these mortgages to others or using them as collateral for the intrinsically corrupt derivatives game.
Let’s face it - illegal aliens are the chosen people for all democrats and establishment Republicans. The effect on the rest of us is of little concern to them as long as they get cheap labor and democrat votes.
Just look at the lineup of Republican candidates - save for Bachman and Santorum, and this week Romney, they are all for amnesty for illegals in some form.
Elections are about choices - about selecting differences. Americans by majorities of 65-85% want illegal immigration stopped and no amnesty of any kind. The Republicans have a winning issue that the majority of voters would support them on, and they are squandering it to get the approvals of the Wall Street Journal, the Chamber of Commerce, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, and the MSM.
The Tea Party started not as some rant by a CNN stock gadfly, but in 2006-2007 when Bush/McCain/Rove/et ilk tried to jam amnesty down our throats and we melted the switchboards and servers on Capitol Hill.
Now they are again telling us to go to hell. Actually, we will go to our homes, and stay there, when they come looking for us on election day.
why not ??? its not like they have alot to fear in being caught...claim 10-12 kids each, so what, its free money, and if they get caught, whats gonna happen ??? deportation ??? to an open border to start it all again...
now i, OTOH, play even a little bit fast and loose with tax 'law' or falsely claim credits then Im lookin at financial ruin at best, or serious jail time...
i wonder if bambam would hook me up with the guy that supplied all his SS#s ???
Worse yet this is the stuff excluded from the trigger cuts.
And you can bet the cunning “impoverished” illegals are riding the US gravy train under multiple identities.
Despite vote-crazed, illegal worshipper Ricky Perry’s demeaning Americans who disagree with giveaways——these lawbreakers are cunning connivers——sucking the US taxpayer dry.
The Washington state rapist, Jose Madrigal, had some 30 identities. At least one illegal collected over $3 million UI benefits using faked identities.
It is Big Business forging and mfg fake identities, and selling them TO “IMPOVERISHED-LOW WAGE” ALIENS for several thousand dollars each.
Another example of government complicity in destroying America. Between this and allowing publication of dead people’s SSNs on the internet, no wonder we have an immigration policy.
Just once, I would love to hear somebody to respond to the open borders and amnesty emotion with this: “Why is America the ONLY COUNTRY in the world that is not allowed to enforce its borders?”
Amnesty is a government growth hormone.
“the problem” is a lawless and out of control central government...
Coincidentally, almost all majority-white (not for long) countries are forced to keep open borders while most non-white countries are allowed to have border control. It would be racist for majority-white countries to practice border control.
Funny thing is that whites are a global minority.
That is not punishing anybody. The financiers of RINO-Dems would just as soon rule through D-puppets as through R-puppets.
LOL——good one.
ANOTHER SCAM IRS payments/EITC claims---can run up to over $3000 per claim. $20 billion is estimated to have been paid out to these cunning "impoverished" illegals. Most of them are collecting over and over again-----using multiple identities-----falsifying apps---claiming children they do not have and/or falsely stating kids are back in their homelands.
Imagine the giveways vote-crazed, illegal worshipper Senor Perry is planning.
Wait a minute.....
Doesn’t each child have to have a SS# for that credit?
Our un-elected Federal Reserve, our elected Judicial, Executive and Legislative Branches spend trillions on themselves and their friends to gain and keep power. ITIN numbers are a problem, but Government is above the law it writes.
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