RICHMOND, Calif., April 13, 2007
In U.S. Illegally, But Still Paying Taxes
Controversy Swirls Over IRS' Acceptance Of Illegal Immigrants' Tax Returns
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Carlos Diaz, right, looks over his tax return that was prepared by Esteban Ramirez, left, at Esteban M. Ramirez and Associates in Richmond, Calif., Wednesday, April 4, 2007. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
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"It serves no other purpose," she said, "and was never intended to serve any other purposes."
Nor does the IRS share immigrants' personal information with ICE or any other agency, Mathis said.
To avoid any resemblance with Social Security cards, the IRS stopped issuing cards and instead sends a letter bearing the tax ID number. Still, these numbers do end up being put to other uses by a population eager for any form of official ID, and by companies interested in doing business with them.
Many banks now allow illegal immigrants to open an account with their ITIN, and Bank of America has a pilot program in Los Angeles that allows customers to use the numbers to sign up for a credit card. Others have created mortgage products for ITIN-bearing immigrants, including Citibank, which offers one in partnership with ACORN Housing Corp.
"They want to go forward, work, be a normal taxpayer," said Erica Gonzalez, a staffer in ACORN's Fresno office, where demand for the tax ID has shot up in recent years. "If they want to establish themselves here, this lets them do that."
Five states — West Virginia, Kentucky, New Mexico, Utah, and Illinois — also allow ITINs to be used as identification for a drivers' license.
This is what rankles the system's critics.
"The IRS never anticipated this phenomenon," said Dinerstein. "They thought it was going to be some boring tax compliance number."
To Ben Johnson, director of the Immigration Policy Center at the nonpartisan American Immigration Law Foundation, the widespread use of tax ID numbers is another sign that the immigration system is broken.
"The U.S. economy hangs a huge 'help wanted' sign at the border, and they come to work, not to hide," he said. "A lot of people struggle with the idea they're here without permission, and want to find a way to operate legitimately, like a normal hardworking person."
Judging by the crowded waiting room at Esteban Ramirez's modest tax preparation office in Richmond, where a television blared Spanish-language soap operas, it's clear undocumented immigrants are growing increasingly comfortable around a Form 1040.
Some are interested in getting refunds, like the approximately 80 percent of tax filers who get them each year. Although ITIN users don't qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which could give a break to an American earning in the same bracket, they can get other tax credits, and can use ITINs to claim dependents in Mexico.
At the end of his session with Ramirez, 18-year-old Diaz found he would have to pay, as he'd expected.
The $800 payment is steep, he said. But if it helps him to build a lawful life in the United States — a life he hopes will include his own janitorial business, and in the future, college — it's worth it.
"It's better to stay on the right side of the law," he said.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 53 CommentsWould YOU be so willing to allow these people in your home with your family for a year, without a back ground check? If so then let come on in and stay with the family's that are crying for them to be allowed to stay.... As for me, not unless they have a back ground check done should they be allowed to stay.
we need a system that will allow guest workers to be here while their labor is needed and allow them to seek citizenship, to make sure that they and their employers are paying into the system, and to assure that American citizens and legal immigrants go to the front of the hiring line.
The ability to do something about this problem begins with the practices of the employers. We need to be able to bring in labor that's needed in a process that's legal and to be sure that the people being hired are part of that process.
The answer isn't to say that you can't work while seeking to obtain citizenship.
immigration, that's the businesses hiring them that you have to target, not the immigrants themselves but the people exploiting cheap labour.
For some reason, this administration is unwilling to go that way.
That's a huge laughable liberal leap! You're only repeating what the liberal yuppie bobble head dolls tell you to think. He cannot be impeached until he actually breaks the law. If he actually did break the law, don't you think the liberal congress would be all over it. Instead of just running their mouths with spins, and empty rhetoric trying to misguide you gullable sheep? I don't agree with Bush on this issue either so save the neocon comments. Maybe we should draft all the illegals, make them kick butt in Iran, Syria, and Iraq. Then the ones that make it back give them citizenship. 2 problems solved.
You know if we say we don't tolerate serial killers, you would call us haters! That's all your ilk knows how to spew. Haters! Liars! Nazi's! Do they publish that in the "Liberal Guide to Anarchy"? I've never enslaved anybody, and I haven't slaughtered any Native Americans. So stuff the ***. Maybe if the Native Americans would have stopped the first ship from landing they would not of been overrun. We should learn from that lesson, and not allow it to happen to us. One hand you libs hate America, then on the other claim we should be the savior to all. You must spend a lot of time in conflict with yourself, always kicking your own ***. I have mex freinds here legally, who have worked, and earned their way without handouts. They feel the same way about the wave of illegals pouring in here. I respect them. I do not respect the illegals who laugh at and mock our country, all the while raping it. I see new cars setting in their driveway, dirtbikes in the yard, as their kids march by my window all summer long to get a free breakfast from our school. At the taxpayer expense. While some work in ag, they get cash, they buy with cash and pay no taxes! The few that do will never pay enough to begin covering the large debt they've created. They commit serious crimes then run back to their country. At least when they enter legally, they know their rights will be pulled if they commit a felony. That is good incentive to be nice.
yes been hungry, just trying to pay these taxes
{income} I am disabled & no I don't get *** for help. So you shut up.
Posted by Slim1H2O at 05:50 PM : Apr 13, 2007
Then I apologize. However, there are genuinely people who are on the system who need it. They are just overshadowed by the ones who abuse it. That makes it difficult to know who the ones that are really trying to change are and the ones who just don't want to work and are using it as a free ride are. That was my point and I got too hot-headed to make it clearly. I apologize for that.
yes been hungry, just trying to pay these taxes
{income} I am disabled & no I don't get *** for help. So you shut up.
Go figure
They did Clinton for telling ONE lie, Bush has a whole, overstuffed bag of them he has told us to screw this country up. Clinton just embarrassed himself and his family, he didn;t endanger the country or told us a whole slew of bold faced lies with a fiendish grin. Have we lost our guts and sense of right? We are governed by crooks and wimps. Someone better do something soon or USA is going down the drain and our Democracy will just be a memory.
I see it all the time with my own eyes
not the news & no not sterotyping.
You should heed your own advice
Posted by Slim1H2O at 05:25 PM : Apr 13, 2007
I do and I see the hard-working single mothers who use their food stamps to put food on the table for their children while working 2 or 3 jobs and going to school at night. I see the mother at the corner holding a sign asking for work to feed her family and I took her shopping for food and I saw, with my own eyes, what had happened and listened to her story.
I agree there are bad people illegally entering the US, but there are bad people already in the US who are legal. What makes Americans so superior to the rest of the world? What makes Americans so sure that we are right and the rest are wrong? What makes you so special that you can automatically assume the worst of a child because you see food stamps in their hands? Have you ever gone hungry because you couldn't afford food? Have you ever been homeless? Have you ever tried your hardest to make a better world for your children, if you even have them, and fall flat on your face because the people in this world keep taking and taking and taking and that leaves the ones who are poor even worse off while the rich rake in their millions?!
I didn't think so. Shut up.
BIRTH STATISTICS 380,000 plus %u201Canchor babies%u201D were born in the U.S. in 2005 to illegal alien parents, making 380,000 babies automatically U.S.citizens.
97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the American taxpayers.
66% plus of all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers
to paraphrase a great American........
And thats the way it is, this april 13 07
75% of those on the most wanted list in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Albuquerque are illegal aliens.
24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally
40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally
48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally
29% (630,000) convicted illegal alien felons fill our state and federal prisons at a cost of $1.6 billion annually
53% plus of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas are perpetrated by illegal aliens.
50% plus of all gang members in Los Angeles are illegal aliens from south of the border.
71% plus of all apprehended cars stolen in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California were stolen by Illegal aliens or %u201Ctransport coyotes".
47% of cited/stopped drivers in California have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 47%, 92% are illegal aliens.
63% of cited/stopped drivers in Arizona have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 63%, 97% are illegal aliens
66% of cited/stopped drivers in New Mexico have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 66% 98% are illegal aliens.
I see it all the time with my own eyes
not the news & no not sterotyping.
You should heed your own advice
INS/FBI Statistical Report on Undocumented Immigrants
2006 (First Quarter) INS/FBI Statistical Report on Undocumented Immigrants
CRIME STATISTICS 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens.
86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens.
Mexicans, legal or otherwise commit more crimes than anybody, per capita. Just read the news, its all there.
Every time I to the food store I'm always behind a illeagal with kids a cart full & paying with a state check, NICE, thats BS
Posted by Slim1H2O at 04:49 PM : Apr 13, 2007
And you stereotype to the Nth degree, which is even worse. You cannot assume that because what is being flashed all over the news as news (which would you choose as an editor of a news show or newspaper...the *** that people will read and eat up like candy or stories that people don't want to hear equating into less money in sales???) is truth.
Walk around and open your eyes and really look...do not just see. The most blind people in the world are those that can see, but never really look. Perhaps that child you see has parents that are working hard, but just can't make ends meet...like the millions of other human beings around the world. That is true whether you are Caucasian, African American, Latino, or a two-toed purple buck-toothed sloth.
At least these people are paying their taxes...more than we can so for millions of legal Americans.
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