Immigration and taxes

A quick update on immigration:

 

All of you have heard how illegal immigration presents an unbelievable strain on the American economy. Many claim that illegal immigrants do not pay taxes, and therefore benefit from the nation’s largesse without contributing to it. This would appear to be a reasonable argument: if it is illegal to pay illegals, then they must be paid under the table. If they are paid under the table, they are not subject to payroll taxes. Thus, they must be stiffing the government at all levels for tax moneys while nevertheless drawing on government services at all levels.

 

This argument is flawed at almost every level. First, those who rant about the problem of illegal immigration also state that such individuals take away jobs from Americans. These jobs, they admit, tend to be at the bottom of the income tax bracket. Speaking as someone who makes just above the poverty level, one of the few blessings of being poor is being exempt from federal income tax. Indeed, for those who do manage to get on payrolls (e.g., by buying fake Social Security numbers), if they are crazy enough to file their taxes they receive back most every dime they pay in. Regardless, if they pay the I.R.S. at all, then they receive back the majority of that which goes in. Of course, those most vitriolic opponents of our current system still agree that the primary draw is not on the national economy (which, by all accounts and studies over the last 30 years, to my knowledge, actually benefits from our current system) but on states. The argument goes that illegal immigrants receive services while we pay for them.

 

Again, this specious bit of reasoning requires little to be picked apart. Aside from the issue of determining how illegal immigrants can receive public services without citizenship or a Social Security number (it seems I can’t leave the house without someone asking me for the latter), let’s look at the question of state taxes. Believe it or not, USA Today offers some insight. Today’s Snapshot (you know, the little graphic on the bottom right that gives you useless statistics without any context) concerns per capita state taxes collected in 2005. The average for every American is $2,189.84. This breaks down as follows:

 

Sales and receipts: $1,051.42

Income: $875.23

Licenses: $144.33

Others: $80.49

Property: $38.36 (not including local or school district property taxes)

 

If we remember that a good deal of income taxes on low income workers is returned, the vast majority of the taxes paid on average by everyone in the U.S. comes from sales. I would like to hear Lou Dobbs explain to me how those shifty illegal immigrants avoid paying sales taxes whenever they buy groceries. Indeed, considering the difficulty of obtaining public services without citizenship, it would appear that illegal immigrants pay for state services without benefiting from them. If this is the case, they join the filthy rich as the only two groups of people who, although they derive none of the blessings of state services, nevertheless pay for poor and middle class folks to go to school and hospital.

 

What an interesting pair! Since I can remember my father has complained about paying for public schools because he spent the gazillions of dollars for me to go to private schools. Maybe near-sighted affluent Republicans like him should join hands with illegal immigrants under the oldest political complaint in the country: taxes.