Pay to stay

What to do with free-riding illegal immigrants

By Sasha Tooryani
From the May 2007 Print Edition

            As much as we dread the day, Uncle Sam inevitably takes a chunk of our paychecks on Tax Day. But now, even undocumented workers are taking part and will be forced to pay taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.

            Collecting taxes from more than 11 million undocumented immigrants has become more of an art than a science. In fact, the use of Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, or ITINs, instead of Social Security numbers has made tax collections from illegal aliens possible. At a National Press Club conference, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson asserted, “We want your money whether you are here legally or not and whether you earned it legally or not.” Many misinformed immigrants fear that paying taxes will lead to discovery of their illegal status and end in deportation. Yet the IRS does not discriminate based on legality of citizenship. After any worker performs services in the United States for more than six months, he is required to pay taxes.

 Millions of jobs in agriculture and construction are dominated by undocumented workers, which results in substantial unaccounted tax income. Politicians are accused of a lack of empathy for undocumented workers, yet public services, which illegal immigrants draw from more heavily than citizens, ultimately depend on a collective budget.

            According a Manhattan Institute report, immigrants generated $9 billion in economic growth in North Carolina. However, despite major contributions to our GDP, immigrant labor substantially drains our nation’s resources. According to CBS news, illegal immigrants’ drain on public services is in the billions. They account for $1.9 billion of public expenditures on health care, and $0.5 billion on education.

In a study by Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the average low-skill household received $22,449 more in benefits than it paid in taxes — $32,138 in benefits, excluding public goods, minus the $9,689 in taxes. Multiplying that by 17.7 million low-skill households, the total deficit for such households was $397 billion in 2004. Consequently, Rector estimates the total cost to taxpayers over a decade to be at least $3.9 trillion.

The damage cannot be undone, but new legislation can ensure that illegal immigrants can help support their share of the pie.  To make up for the “illegal immigrant deficit,” the Bush administration proposed to increase taxes by 66 percent for immigration services. This mandate to tax prospective immigrants fairly can help alleviate the very stresses immigration places on our economy.

Some may argue that our nation is dependent on unskilled immigrants since they perform jobs at low wages. Yet that is no excuse for the current system of economic dependency which creates a semi–welfare state and unnecessarily wastes millions of dollars  Welfare programs in neighborhoods with high rates of illegal immigration run rampant, draining millions of dollars from initiatives to fix other problems. According to a report by the Heritage Institute, the poverty rate among Hispanic immigrants is 24.5 percent.

Many illegal immigrants depend heavily on the infrastructure of the United States’ health and education systems. Without adequate an adequate tax paying system, Latino communities cannot properly sustain their economic futures nor the economic future of the nation. Increasing future opportunities for youth by improving schools in these Hispanic communities requires investment, which is only possible when all immigrants using those services pay their fair share.

Access to these services is at risk if illegal immigrants do not contribute to the pot they are drawing from. Requiring illegal immigrants to pay taxes will help ensure a path to legitimate citizenship and self-sufficiency.

Ensuring illegal immigrants pay their fair share won’t solve all problems.  The approximately 11 million undocumented workers in this country face issues such as unemployment, crime, and difficulty learning English. These barriers to culturally integrate discourage formal citizenship and prevent integration within public institutions.

            Taxing illegal immigrants also creates disincentives for future immigrants to cross the border illegally, by ending the free lunch that attracts so many to America. Increasing tax collections from illegal aliens certainly won’t solve the entire current immigration fiasco. American citizenship requires more than a dollar sacrifice, but enforcing tax codes across the board is certainly a step in the right direction.

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