Illegal aliens given billions in tax credits by the IRS

Monday, September 19, 2011 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: tax credits, illegal aliens, health news

(NaturalNews) The federal government has a little cash flow problem, which has led to somewhat of a national debt in the neighborhood of $14 trillion. A big part of that problem has to do with a government addicted to spending and a large portion of the workforce unable to find employment (and thus pay income taxes) in a lousy economy that produced exactly zero jobs last month.

But another major reason why there is a cash flow problem in D.C. is because government just isn't very efficient, which would explain how illegal aliens could actually obtain $4.2 billion in tax credits from the Internal Revenue Service.

Washington's pandering lawmakers give tax breaks to just about everyone. Nearly half of all Americans, for one reason or another, pay no income taxes come April 15.

Also, two-thirds of U.S. corporations also pay no income taxes. And, when you add in all of the tax credits Americans receive, you may begin to understand a little bit about why Washington has a cash-flow problem.

But at least these breaks are for legitimate U.S. corporations and American citizens. Say what you will about the issue of illegal immigration, but you'd be hard pressed to explain why it is they, as a group, are getting billions in tax breaks, especially after coming to the U.S. illegally and taking jobs away from American citizens while the unemployment rate is hovering around 9.1 percent.

Yet, that's exactly what's happening. According to a report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, though illegal aliens are not eligible for federal benefits, the tax code is someone strangely vague on whether this group of workers is eligible for tax break on earned income called the additional child tax credit. What's more, the IRS says there isn't anything it can do to disallow the claims.

"The disconcerting findings in this report demand immediate attention and action from Congress and the Obama Administration," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in a statement, parts of which were published by the Washington Post. "With our debt standing at over $14.5 trillion and counting, it's outrageous that the IRS is handing out refundable tax credits to those who aren't even eligible to work in this country."

But don't you have to have a Social Security number to work legally in the U.S.? Not anymore. Our brilliant panderers in Foggy Bottom have knocked down that little hurdle.

People who are in the country illegally to work don't have to have a Social Security number. They can get what the IRS calls individual taxpayer identification numbers instead. And, according to the IRS' inspector general report, 72 percent of those using individual taxpayer identification numbers claimed the child tax credit of course.

Here's the final insult. It's not as if this little tax haven for illegals is just now showing up on the waste, fraud and abuse radar. The Center for Immigration Studies warned nearly a decade ago that these individual tax numbers were going to be abused by illegal aliens to make it easier for them to melt unnoticed into American society - then take advantage of tax breaks they were never meant to receive.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said in 2008 that paying taxes is a patriotic thing to do. Shouldn't giving away U.S. taxpayer benefits to illegal aliens be unpatriotic then?

Sources:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-...

http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/

http://www.cis.org/IRSTaxID-ImmigrationLaw