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How is the government getting taxes from people it doesn't know exist?? I thought you had to file your taxes yourself in America, why or how would the migrants even do that? Or if the employer is doing that, who do they say they are doing it for??
Undocumented migrants still pay taxes that are built into systems we interact with, like sales, rent, mortgage, etc. They also frequently have payroll taxes taken out, and even file taxes using an ITIN instead of SSN. They also can't capitalize on govt. programs like section 8 or social security, so they are only able to contribute to these funding pools. Undocumented migrants generate billions per year in taxes for the US.
Filing taxes is how we get refunds for overpaying in the US.
Paying taxes is done for us, through withholding out of our paychecks (don't need a SS#, as a TIN will do here), sales tax on purchases of goods, and in other ways, like connected to housing, etc.
While immigrants in the country without authorization do not have Social Security numbers, they can file taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN.
Reports about 3m people file using an ITIN each year, and the number of people expected to legally use them is very small.
Also says they see about $12B more paid into social security by illegals than paid out.
As Al Capone found, the government is would rather you pay tax on illegally earned money.
Every couple months I learn of another way the us government interacts with 'undocumented' migrants. I find it supremely silly that these people have identification numbers, pay taxes, are counted for the census and participate in elections but they're still referred to as 'undocumented'?? They clearly are documented, wtf does 'undocumented' mean then?
It's a nicer way of saying they're here illegally. Despite all evidence that immigrants are hard working people with lower than average crime and social problems; we insist on criminalizing them because they didn't ask permission to cross the border.
Those are the wrong documents!
I was going to expand on this but that's pretty much it.
As Al Capone found, the government is would rather you pay tax on illegally earned money.
That was more an end run around accidentally indicting all the state and federal officials who'd gotten wrapped up in his corruption.
Capone should have gone down for murder years earlier, but too much of the early Hoover Era FBI was willing to turn a blind eye to Capone's mafia exploits or rat out informants before they could go to trial.
Yes. But my point is that the IRS has a process for declaring and paying tax on income that you got illegally, whether it's from being a mobster or working without the right visa.
Capone didn't follow that process, so got done for tax evasion.
These illegal immigrants are paying their taxes, and therefore a) they aren't exposed to prosecution for tax evasion, and b) the IRS won't rat them out to ICE.
These illegal immigrants are paying their taxes
The vast majority of them are earning under the standard deduction and don't actually owe anything. Individuals don't owe taxes on income under $29.2k and the cheap labor migrants provide mean they often earn far less. Since they aren't eligible for any refundable credits, this means there's no incentive to file.
Where they pay their taxes is typically on the consumer end - sales, real estate, gas/utilities taxes, etc.
Sales tax exists.
Is sales tax included in prices? I've seen people online saying it's often not since it varies from place to place?
Correct, sales tax is not included in pricing in the US. I learned that at a fairly young age when I wanted to spend $20 I had from my birthday on a $20 Lego set when whoops, need another dollar (thankfully my mom was there to cover it)
So it's not included on the sticker price but it is included in the price you pay
Yep
In the states, sales tax is almost never included in the price.
How is the government getting taxes from people it doesn’t know exist??
Going to the store and handing over my money for the stuff. There's a % sales tax at the bottom of my receipt, but how is this possible?! I didn't tell the government I was going shopping today.
Drive back home to my apartment, where I pay my rent for the month. My landlord forward a chunk of that money to the city as real estate taxes. But I never formally registered my citizenship at this address, so how can that be?
Heading to the bar where I earn my living. Most of my income is in tips, which my boss collects and skims the business tax rate off of before distributing the balance. But there's no bartender's license to work here, so how did he know to do that?
Omw home, I've got to remember to re-register my car and buy more gas-taxed petrol and damn it feels like there's a lot of ways for a government to collect tax money from me.
Could you not write this less condescending? I'm sorry I'm not from the US. When I heard people say that sales tax isn't included in the price and that you need to file your taxes every year I assumed that was how the tax was collected.
In the United States there is federal corp tax taken from documented workers and paid to the national government (federal tax) by businesses. State tax is also taken the same way and paid to the state.
This just income tax, but there are many other forms of taxes. Vehicle tax, gas tax, food tax, clothing tax, restaurant tax, etc. These all go to the state and vary in amount depending on the state.
This is also why our prices don't include tax. So apple/amazon can show a single price and your state tax gets tacked on at checkout.So this "undocumented Immigrants paid X in taxes" is them paying taxes on good but not income. Businesses can pay these people in cash under the table and not paying taxes or benefits for them.
I’m sorry I’m not from the US.
Sales, real estate, and other consumption taxes aren't unique to the US.
When I heard people say that sales tax isn’t included in the price and that you need to file your taxes every year
You're hearing bullshit. There was a historical loophole by which online merchants asserted that sales taxes needed to be collected from the individuals purchasing the goods rather than the businesses selling them. That loophole has long since been closed.
But virtually nobody paid the tax. Few people even know how or what they might owe. And even if they had, you don't need to be a citizen to buy something online.
This is a good question and should be upvoted.
I mean, at the base of it all, do they not buy things? If they buy stuff, they pay taxes.
Most illegals came in legally, and let their visa expire
Income taxes are withheld from the paycheck. The filing is largely unnecessary in the modern day and most people are getting refunds. The IRS offers tax ID numbers to people who don't have social security numbers and they generally don't care if you're a citizen unless you try to claim something like the earned income tax credit. They literally just want to get paid.