Posted on 02/01/2002 10:47:45 PM PST by Bayou City
Feb. 1, 2002, 9:48PM
Workers hope IRS has their number
Undocumented immigrants sign up for tax rolls
By EDWARD HEGSTROM
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
CONROE -- The overflow crowd stretched out the church door and into the parking lot, where the line formed for hundreds of illegal immigrants hoping to become legal U.S. taxpayers.
After a wait outside of an hour or more, participants at the seminar this week filled out a government form, presented their Mexican or Central American identification and then met with an IRS agent.
Nearly 500 signed up for the document known as an individual taxpayer identification number after being assured their information would not be shared with immigration agents.
Some in line said they hope paying taxes legally would be the first step of legalizing their U.S. stay. Others say taxes are already taken automatically from their paycheck, and they hope to get some back through a refund check.
"I want to be recognized," said one Spanish-speaking woman who identified herself only as a clerk. "I've been paying taxes for three years."
With 7 million to 8 million people now working illegally in this country, the Internal Revenue Service has quietly begun trying to register them as taxpayers.
Since 1996, the government has offered a taxpayer ID number to anyone who cannot obtain a Social Security number -- typically because they are working in the country illegally.
Local IRS agents now offer grants and seminars designed to get illegal immigrants officially registered on the tax rolls.
"The more of these we do, the more people come in," said IRS representative Leandro Leon, who has organized the seminars promoted by Spanish-language television and held at churches that attract Latin American immigrants. "I guess people are losing their fear of the INS."
Houston is not the only city with a surge in applications. The IRS reports that 5.3 million people have obtained a taxpayer ID number since 1996, though officials cannot say how many are illegal immigrants (foreigners living overseas who file U.S. taxes use the same type of ID number).
Not all the immigrant outreach is so amicable. Some illegal immigrants say the IRS has aggressively attempted to collect back taxes.
IRS representatives defend their efforts to enroll undocumented workers without reporting them to immigration authorities. They say their mandate is to collect the taxes from those who work rather than to determine who has the right to work.
"One requirement of the tax law is that people have to report their taxes, even if the money comes illegally," said Don Roberts, an IRS spokesman in Washington. "A person could report millions of dollars from drug dealing and we can't share that information with the DEA."
Congress set up the law so taxpayers who accurately report their income to the IRS can be assured the information will never be shared with other government agencies. Even law-abiding citizens would be reluctant to report their income if that information could be passed around among bureaucrats in Washington, Roberts reasons.
But critics say the taxpayer ID number system clearly indicates the government is no longer interested in enforcing immigration laws.
"It doesn't make sense," said Roy Beck, head of Numbers USA, a group that opposes high immigration levels. "The federal government is saying: "You are breaking the law and shouldn't be working, but now that you are working, we will give you this number that makes it easier for you to work.' "
A person cannot legally work in the United States without a Social Security card. But that doesn't stop millions from working anyway.
Some illegal immigrants are paid in cash never reported to the government. But perhaps millions of others obtain false Social Security cards or borrow others' Social Security numbers. Employers sometimes pay taxes on these workers' earnings.
The proliferation of false Social Security numbers frustrates the government tax people.
"We kept finding cases like the 90-year-old woman listed as working as a stevedore at the Port of Houston," said Leon.
No one knows how much immigrants pay in taxes every year, though plenty of experts have tried to guess.
A few years ago, retired Rice University professor Donald Huddle found in a study for a conservative group that immigrants cost the government $69 billion a year because they use more in services than they pay in taxes.
Liberal groups attacked Huddle's oft-quoted study as inaccurate and based on false assumptions. Urban Institute demographer Jeff Passel found a different answer.
"If you look at this in terms of a lifetime, an immigrant contributes more than he or she uses," Passel said. "But in the short run, there are costs."
That's a sentiment shared by Alejandro, an undocumented carpenter from rural Fort Bend County with a wife and two kids who pays $185 in IRS back taxes every month. The Mexican native, who won't give his last name, says he was approached on the job a few years ago by government agents wondering why he had a false Social Security number.
The IRS now calculates Alejandro owes about $4,000, according to documents. He is dutifully paying the money, he says.
Alejandro said he gets angry every time he sees American politicians arguing on Spanish-language TV that immigrants don't pay taxes.
"We come here to work. We don't come here to be fed," he said.
Haa...I bet they were offered voter registration cards at the same time.
Angry because he got caught. D'OH!
Even the onew who do cost the American taxpayer $15,000 per person in social services and education! Who are these people kidding!
First we need to find some small offshore country that Americans could get an official ID from, in your real name, for a few dollars by mail. Just send them a small photo of yourself, a little personal information, and the processing fee. A lot of these countries are so poor that they would welcome a new source of income.
Then with our newly acquired official ID, we would walk into a bank or a state department of motor vehicles that caters to illegals and say "I want to open a bank account" or "I want to apply for a driver's license". I would imagine this would be perfectly legal as long as you used your real name and your newly obtained real foreign ID and weren't trying to defraud anybody.
If the bank or motor vehicle agency refused to accept your official non-Mexican foreign ID or started questioning you about your immigrant or citizen status, then perhaps you would have grounds for a discrimination lawsuit. If they are going to accept the matricula consular ID cards from Mexican illegals without questioning them, then they should accept official ID from other countries as well.
If nothing else, it would be fun to see the reactions on the faces of the employees at the bank or motor vehicle agency when you hand over your non-Mexican foreign ID. I would imagine that most of them wouldn't know what to say or how to deal with it.
Question Hugh: what does it do for our respect for the law when one branch of the federal government actively colludes with criminals in breaking our laws?
Hugh, can you ask your connected friends which federal laws it is all right for common ordinary American citizens to ignore?
Or do we just pick and choose the laws we will obey, the way the fedgov picks which laws it will enforce?
If the INS was run like the BATF, every illegal alien in America would be arrested, deported or shot in one month.
g 'nite
I am considering the question seriously...
Buchanan was right....
"If you look at this in terms of a lifetime, an immigrant contributes more than he or she uses," Passel said. "But in the short run, there are costs." Alejandro said he gets angry every time he sees American politicians arguing on Spanish-language TV that immigrants don't pay taxes. "We come here to work. We don't come here to be fed," he said.You know, I will probably pay more in taxes than I use. Will the IRS excuse me? Doubtful.
Will the Liberal media say to me, "Oh, you've suffered enough in your life. Don't bother paying taxes"?
If the only "taxes" I pay are sales taxes, can I still be considered an upright American?
If I work hard, and don't get into trouble, raise my family and want to be left alone by the government, is that praiseworthy? Do I get a picture in the paper and 10 column inches?
Oh, that's right. I was BORN in the US and am a natural-born citizen, which means I don't get the liberal's sympathy for being a good person. Too bad, some days I could really use the media's moral support. But that only goes to the poor oppressed undocumented folk, not a repressive male citizen like me.
I guess I have to remind myself who I've been oppressing lately, I seem to have lost track.
In a sane nation, it would be the first step in arresting them and deporting them.
--Boris
Hugh, can you ask your connected friends which federal laws it is all right for common ordinary American citizens to ignore?
Or do we just pick and choose the laws we will obey, the way the fedgov picks which laws it will enforce? "
Well said bump.
If they are going to ignore the law in such an obvious way for all to see, how can they expect us to obey the law?
The Kosovo Serbs used to enjoy all that cheap Albanian labor too.....but the Albanians never went home, instead they brought in all of their extended families.
The American Southwest will be America's Kososvo in 20 years.
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