If I had my way, everyone who had a job would be paying income tax, state or otherwise. My article says more than 50% of illegals nationwide pay income tax. According to this link, there are 3M illegal immigrants in California and 12M nationwide. 7.9M is more than 1/2 of 12M, no? http://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/california-immigration.html As I pointed out earlier, they're still paying taxes even if not state income tax. Tax on everything they buy, state tax on gasoline for their cars, and so on. If they own property (which many do), they're paying property taxes. If they're renting, they're helping the landlord pay their property tax. More statistics in this article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/15/MNGRMJEGM81.DTL&type=politics Selling illegal immigrants the American dream Their immigration status did not prevent them from buying a home. It is legal for undocumented people to purchase property in the United States. The problem has been borrowing the money to pay for it. Ramiro and Marisol have stable jobs, but many undocumented people have spotty or nonexistent credit histories. Often, they've worked off the books. That's two big strikes against getting a mortgage. Another issue used to be an absolute deal breaker when undocumented people applied for home loans: Until recently, people had to have a Social Security number to qualify for a mortgage. Now, a handful of banks, including some major institutions, have begun offering home-mortgage loans to people who don't have Social Security accounts. Instead, borrowers can use individual taxpayer identification numbers, or ITINs, which are used to file income tax returns. These lending programs also allow borrowers to use unconventional ways to demonstrate their creditworthiness. The Internal Revenue Service issues taxpayer IDs to both resident and nonresident aliens so they can pay taxes. A significant number of the 8.6 million holders of individual taxpayer IDs are illegal immigrants, according to the Government Accounting Office. Even as a heated debate swirls around the 12 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States, they are increasingly participating in the country's financial system, from paying taxes to opening bank accounts. And, for many undocumented people, just as for many citizens, the ultimate financial goal is to be a homeowner.
I advocate people who work paying taxes. At least she went out of her way to pay them. It shouldn't be so hard for her and others like her to pay income taxes. If the laws weren't stacked against them, they'd have to get ID and be paid minimum wage and have withholding taken out, whether they had immigration papers or not.
No it doesn't. Please show me where it said that. They didn't verify that the 7.9M were all illegals in your first article. They made the assumption that many of them were from illegals. You're making invalid assumptions and struggling with reading comprehension, and then trying to pass it off as "fact". You're WAY off on this one, but by all means continue arguing... It looks really funny.
Quite frankly, the state can't afford not do it. Skilled workforce is required to attract businesses that provide employment and tax-income. One of the things holding the metro Portland area down is the lack of high-quality higher education. This has nothing to do with being able to compete - it has anything to do with promoting better education for a more skilled workforce and population. This is a rather short-sighted look at it. The people that live near Stanford and UCLA have seen their property values sky-rocket because of all the businesses that were created because of research and education from these institutes, and the same is right for most areas where the better schools are at. (and btw, I am aware that Stanford is not a public school). The same is true for Boston and MIT and Zurich and the university of Zurich and Haifa and the Technion and just about every place where good schools are around the world. There are a lot of benefits to helping educate the population - they are not necessarily direct and easy to tabulate - but they are better than the alternative.
UC schools are consistently some of the top public institutions because they got rid of AA in admissions. one of the few things California did get right.
When many people come to the same "assumption" there may be some data that suggests that assumption is correct. On the other hand, you're simply denying what appears to be the truth without giving any reason why you think the experts' numbers are wrong. Last time I looked at my pay stub, the state withheld money for taxes they expect me to owe, as well as the feds. http://californiawatch.org/watchblog/illegal-immigrants-pay-their-taxes-study-finds Illegal immigrants pay their taxes, study finds In the continued debate over immigration, some proponents of a new amnesty program make an economic argument: By legalizing illegal immigrants who have come to the U.S. to work, a torrent of new tax revenue will flow into government coffers, they say. But a study by the Public Policy Institute of California released Tuesday night says that when it comes to paying taxes, illegal immigrants are already doing their share. “Illegal immigrants already pay sales taxes and many contribute to Social Security,” according to a PPIC study based on data from the PPIC’s New Immigrant Survey. It draws on information from a sample of former illegal immigrants who became legal permanent residents in 2003. “The vast majority of illegal immigrants already file federal tax returns,” a report summary says. “In the year before acquiring legal status, 87 percent of those who had crossed the border illegally and 91 percent of those who had overstayed their visas filed federal returns.” http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2008-04-10-immigrantstaxes_N.htm llegal 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. Paycheck withholding collects much of the federal tax from illegal workers, just as it does for legal workers. ... The Social Security Administration estimates that about three-quarters of illegal workers pay taxes that contribute to the overall solvency of Social Security and Medicare. ... In 2006, then IRS Commission Mark Everson told Congress that "many illegal aliens, utilizing ITINs, have been reporting tax liability to the tune of almost $50 billion from 1996 to 2003." http://reason.org/news/show/122411.html Illegal Immigrants are Paying a Lot More Taxes Than You Think Denying public services to people who pay their taxes is an affront to America's bedrock belief in fairness. But many "pull-up-the-drawbridge" politicians want to do just that when it comes to illegal immigrants. The fact that illegal immigrants pay taxes at all will come as news to many Americans. A stunning two-thirds of illegal immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes. Yet, nativists like Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., have popularized the notion that illegal aliens are a colossal drain on the nation's hospitals, schools and welfare programs — consuming services that they don't pay for. ... One might have imagined that those fearing deportation or confronting the prospect of paying for their safety net through their own meager wages would take a pass on the IRS' scheme. Not so. Close to 8 million of the 12 million or so illegal aliens in the country today file personal income taxes using these numbers, contributing billions to federal coffers. No doubt they hope that this will one day help them acquire legal status — a plaintive expression of their desire to play by the rules and come out of the shadows. What's more, aliens who are not self-employed have Social Security and Medicare taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks. Since undocumented workers have only fake numbers, they'll never be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for. Last year, the revenues from these fake numbers — that the Social Security administration stashes in the "earnings suspense file" — added up to 10 percent of the Social Security surplus. The file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year. (a point in all three of these articles is that these people are paying into the system and getting back far less than the rest of us do)
As long as they attend class in jail where they belong, I have no problem with it. The Honorable Mr Chin and his Gang of Seven are misusing their position to flaunt Federal Law and engage in political activism. I expect they will eventually lose all federal educational funding if they continue to shaft taxpayers by ignoring the intent of the federal statute.
It does not make them legal residents, and there are legions of public law enforcement employees who are refusing to perform the basic duties of their job. Want to cut government costs? Fire everyone who turns a blind eye to illegal immigrants and eliminate any agency head who allows or encourages shielding criminals from prosecution. I say mail them all a fake free tuition voucher, then arrest them all when they show up at school.
Other unconvicted lawbreakers who should be in prison for their crimes but pay taxes anyway include: unconvicted child molesters, rapists, burglars, meth dealers, embezzlers, hired assassins, gang members, kidnappers, animal abusers, serial killers, shoplifters, people with several DUI's... If you excuse illegal invaders of their crimes you pretty much have to excuse all these LEGAL CITIZENS of their crimes also.
I've never seen any documentation or proof that illegal aliens have any trouble collecting Social Security when they reach age. The notion that they are using fake numbers is simply a lie. SSN's are not chosen randomly, leaving out some numbers and skipping some here and there. There are no extra numbers designated to not be used. Illegals use real numbers that belong to other people, many of them deceased or in prison. Like someone who collects their dead brother's SS payments, as an Oregon man did for years, these illegal aliens retire using the same number they paid on. It's likely in many cases they get a double-dip on their work record combined with the person's they stole their number from.
Thanks for pointing out that jaywalkers are actually prosecuted far more often and more severely than illegal aliens of Mexican descent.
Don't really know. I suppose a union wouldn't be overly concerned about citizenship (checking that is the employer's responsibility). barfo
Not exactly, Denny. First, a number of roads you use regularly was partially paid for by someone who lives 500 miles away. It's a wash. Second, the road system provides connectivity to everyone in your state, some of which (food, clothing, shelter) is required for everyday life. Second, graduates of private universities and out of state schools provide contributions to you as well. Do you subsidize their education? You're resigned to using a "perhaps, maybe, just in case" argument. Not very convincing. There's simply no guarantee nor a way to measure that the people you subsidize will impact your life in a meaningful way nor to properly compensate for that impact across the spectrum. How can you decide how much to compensate someone when they're 18 for something they may or may not do at 50? It's simply easier and more effective to compensate them when and if they make their contribution.[/quote] The payment structure of a public vs. private institution is completely different. The public institution subsidizes tuition and all the ancillary costs to running a university. The private institution may subsidize tuition, but they do so out of their endowment which is privately funded. So why can't public universities do the same? I'm fine with financial aid, specificially in the form of student loans. If a private university would like to give a grant out of their endowment, that's great. But to ask everyone to subsidize a choice made by a few when there are private options out there seems to me to be both silly and wasteful. If they can't stand on their own, then they should fail.
