Topic "Illegals" and paying taxes - read this and know more than the guy at the water cooler

FACTS on "illegals"
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/underpants/27

According to the US Social Security Administration 75% pay payroll taxes and will contribute $6-7 BILLION in Social Security funds that they will never claim.

Do they drain social service resources MORE than they contribute?

The CATO Institute (yes them) says: -- this is from 1997 for full disclosure

Myth number four: Immigrants impose a financial burden on taxpayers. Immigrants do make somewhat heavier use of means-tested welfare programs than natives. There have been especially flagrant abuses by immigrants of particular welfare programs, such as Supplemental Security Income. But because immigrants tend to come to the United States during the start of their working years --between the ages of 18 and 35 -- they make very large net contributions to the two largest income transfer programs: Social Security and Medicare. When the payroll tax contributions of immigrants are taken into account, the Urban Institute found that the foreign born constitute a net fiscal windfall to the public sector of some $20 billion a year. To the extent that welfare use by immigrants is a problem, this can be addressed by restricting the welfare eligibility of immigrants, not by keeping immigrants out.
http://www.cato.org/dailys/4-22-97.html

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/underpants/27

April 11, 2006
Immigrants and Taxes
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1424.html

The IRS has seen an increase in the number of tax returns filed using an Individual Tax Identification Number.
Last year, 1.4 million people filed tax returns using the numbers. That's an increase of 40 percent over the previous year.
In 2003, 7,600 people in New Mexico requested the numbers.

While some argue that illegal immigrants do not pay their fair share of taxes compared to the value of government services they receive, this is partially a normative question that needs to be accompanied by more empirical evidence to support or refute. But to answer the question, "Do illegal immigrants pay any taxes?" the answer is clearly yes.

Illegal immigrants are paying taxes to Uncle Sam, experts agree. Just how much they pay is hard to determine because the federal government doesn't fully tally it. But the latest figures available indicate it will amount to billions of dollars in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes this year. One rough estimate puts the amount of Social Security taxes alone at around $9 billion per year

The impact on Social Security is significant, though, because most of that money is never claimed by the people who pay it but instead helps cover retirement checks to legal workers.

Federal law prohibits paying Social Security to illegal immigrants, but the administration factors in both legal and illegal immigration when projecting the trust fund's long-term solvency.

That adds up to roughly $90 billion in federal taxes during they eight-year period. He calculates that illegal immigrants contributed $428 billion dollars to the nation's $13.6 trillion gross domestic product.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081029184102AAWkAAt


Illegal Immigrants are Paying a Lot More Taxes Than You Think
May 1, 2006
Eight million illegals pay Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes
http://reason.org/news/show/122411.html

In reality, the 1996 welfare reform bill disqualified illegal immigrants from nearly all means-tested government programs including food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid and Medicare-funded hospitalization. The only services that illegals can still get are emergency medical care and K-12 education.

The cost of undocumented aliens is an issue that immigrant bashers have created to whip up indignation against people they don't want here in the first place. With the Senate having just returned from yet another vacation and promising to revisit the stalled immigration bill, politicians ought to set the record straight: Illegals are not milking the government. If anything, it is the other way around.

Shikha Dalmia is a senior analyst at Reason Foundation, a free-market think tank. This column was originally distributed by the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.

Study: Immigrants Pay Tax Share
No Gap With U.S.-Born Residents Seen in Area, but Those Here Illegally Account for Less
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/04/AR2006060400965.html

they BROKE THE LAW!!!111!!!! THEY ARE CRIMINALS!11!!!!!

It's not a felony, it's not even a misdemeanor. The way fear-mongers throw around the emotionally charged word ILLEGAL (in all caps, often misspelled) is ludicrous.

There is actually a meaningful difference.

That was just ONE contractor in South Florida.
I don't know what illegal immigrants you're talking
about, but the ones that directl affected me
and my wages were definitely NOT paying taxes.

Restaurant
seafood
Tyson foods
Smithfield packing
agriculture
hotels
state road crew contractors



they aren't all being paid under the table and to even suggest that they are is lying.

So roughly 2/3 are paying taxes (other than sales tax on items they buy), depending on exactly what number you want to use as your estimate for the total in country.

And you did nothing?

It's obvious you don't know squat
about how subcontractors (in all trades)
are paid.

You characterized them as "phony 1099's". Does you extensive knowledge of how subcontractors in all trades are paid extend to the realization that if they are erroneously classified as independent contractors, he could be liable for penalties? Why is he issuing 1099s based on infomation that is known to be bogus? Here, I found a link for you, right from South Florida.


http://www.floridacdc.org/forms/indepen.htm

As for how I know, weeeeeelllllllllll.....


Because you said so. I didn't bring the fact that your FIL issued phony federal tax documents, knowingly paid illegal aliens who did not have authority to work in the US (nor did he legal when he hired them) and given that he issued phony 1099's knowingly, he knew he was breaking the law.

Dude - you basically said that the guy was a MAJOR criminal, and then you are asking ME to justify calling him a criminal. WTF?

But if you give them amnesty, you can damn well bet they're going to try to collect SS benefits.

What does an illegal alien make anyway? $20-30 thousand? 6.2% of that is $1,240-1,860. I have a feeling that most of them cost local governments far more than that in judicial system, hospital, and education costs.

not to mention a portion of the wages goes back into the local economy

But Western Union manages to keep a few dollars of it on the way back there.

I'm not denying that they're working for it, but in many cases, those jobs might belong to legal citizens who would keep it all here.

The world is all interconnected. Time to face up to it. That guy washing dishes is REALLY not hurting you - look UP, focus on the REAL criminals. They are the masters and power brokers, not poor Mexicans trying to take care of their families.

and your loved ones. If that requires you to illegally cross a border, then you should illegally cross a border. I have never understood the amount of hostility and hatred that is directed at undocumented workers. The haters don't want to believe that undocumented workers actually pay lots of taxes because they want to rationalize their hatred.

:thumbsup:

than to look around and realized you are being manipulated by the real criminals

workers or OWNERS? focus on the REAL villains, not the desperate

there really IS enough to go around if the obscenely wealthy weren't so greedy

I don't like it when people settle for less when they don't have to, particularly when that makes it harder for me to settle for more.

Starting with "myth number four" the discussion is about immigrants and not about illegal aliens ("illegal immigrants" if you must). That confuses their presentation of facts somewhat.

and that report is specific when the estimation is based solely on legal or illegal immigrants. It uses the term "immigrant" when it refers to the combination of legal and illegal immigrants.
link:
http://www.urban.org/publications/305184.html#V

but this is from the mid-90's (I disclosed that) before the rightwing had focus grouped "illegal aliens". "Immigrant" may have been just the commonly used word then.

Good catch though. Thanks for pointing that out.

There are number of other questions that I have with the thread.

"The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank that often works in coalitions with right-wing groups."

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cato-institute