CI Post #2…Do Immigrants Pay Taxes?

One of the leading arguments against granting undocumented immigrants legal citizenship rights is the issue of paying up at tax time. Many against the cause claim that immigrants do not pay taxes, therefore should not be granted the services we have for paying taxes. Some of these may include health insurance, welfare, and other government aid services. Many uneducated people on the topic claim that immigrants drain our system and contributing to the downfall of our economy. Both of these issues go hand in hand, but there is one very important thing to distinguish on this topic; immigrants do pay taxes, and they contribute a lot more to this country than they take out. Immigration has always been a boost to the economy, and people do not realize that without immigrants the demand for manual labor would sky rocket with no Americans waiting to take their spot. Immigrants are necessary for a flourishing economy, and without outsiders this country would not have become what it is today.

But back to the issue at hand. Why are there those nasty comments made about immigrants draining our system and not contributing a cent to this country? How could people think that those who rises their lives to escape horrid conditions would come to this country to sit around and drain our system. If these immigrants were so “lazy”, they would not have struggled to get here and maintain a paycheck to paycheck life. These workers are filed under a ITIN system (number system for those without social security) under the IRS. (VisaNow). This is where the confusion may come in; because they are not legally allowed to work in this country, but are still hired by employees “off the books,” many people assume that their paychecks are not taxed. This is a big misconception because they are in fact still taxed through this very ITIN system. Paycheck withholding collects taxes from immigrants just as they do from American citizens. Another important factor is that illegal immigrants do not want to do anything that will make them stand out and face deportation, so most do not file for tax returns even if they are legible. There is much room for mistake here and the leading question is how much are they actually over providing in fear of government attention? And lets not forget state taxes that we all pay as consumers; taxes on food, clothing, and every other tax we are charged. Being an immigrant does not excuse you from paying these taxes.

Those who are not in the ITIN system can get away with not paying taxes, but that still does not mean these immigrants take more than they give. It is estimated that 3/4 of immigrants contribute to Social Security and Medicare systems alone when they are not even qualified to receive this aid (USAToday). Below are some exact figures taken from VisaNow, showing a rough estimate (actually projected to be higher because the actual number of undocumented immigrants is hard to know for sure) of how much these immigrants contribute to our system, and not in fact take out.