Bush Removes Provision Requiring Back taxes From Illegal Immigrants

Boston Globe ^ | May 19, 2007 | Michael Kranish

[Jim Noble]

The Bush administration insisted on a little-noticed change in the bipartisan Senate immigration bill that would enable 12 million undocumented residents to avoid paying back taxes or associated fines to the Internal Revenue Service, officials said.

An independent analyst estimated the decision could cost the IRS tens of billions of dollars.

A provision requiring payment of back taxes had been in the initial version of a bill proposed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat. But the administration called for the provision to be removed due to concern that it would be too difficult to figure out which illegal immigrants owed back taxes...

"It is important that the reformed immigration system is workable and cost efficient," Stanzel said. "Determining the past tax liability would have been very difficult and costly and extremely time consuming."...

Laura Capps, a spokeswoman for Kennedy, said a provision for requiring back taxes was in Kennedy's original bill and that Chertoff called for it to be removed. "Chertoff thought it would be too challenging to accurately determine the amount of an applicant's back taxes," she said.

Administration officials said many illegal immigrants do not get paychecks that can be audited, making it difficult to determine tax liability.

[MNJohnnie]

BS. This is just more of the nonsense made up BS from the rabid Bush haters. The provision for back taxes is IN the bill. This bill is a terrible and should be defeated but the rabid Bush haters do NOT help matters when they manufacture LIES about the bill.

[Diogenesis]

If true, El Presidente is to the LEFT of Kennedy.

[mirkwood]

“Administration officials said many illegal immigrants do not get paychecks that can be audited, making it difficult to determine tax liability.”

And yet they are sure that there are 12 million. I am done with taxes. You pay for them, Jorge.

[Diogenesis]

Any provision of ‘difficulty’ will be removed
by activist judges. THAT has been the plan all along.

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

This is just insane.

America is a shining jewel to be held aloft to the world as an example of freedom, liberty, prosperity and goodness, NOT to be made common with the rest of the world to be raped and pillaged by globalists.

Extreme anger - words fail me.

[Son House]

Have your Driver licence revoked? Call 1-800-SENATE
Criminal Record? Call 1-800-SENATE
Owe back child support? Call 1-800-SENATE
Being their making everything else legal.

[ovrtaxt]

yay Bush. good ol W. whoopee.

[Darkwolf377]

I’m against this bill, too, but it’s funny how suddenly the Boston Globe is the paper of record when it’s bashing Bush.

[patj]

Will they do the same for Americans? Isn’t that discrimination? Does anyone in the gov. care?

[TADSLOS]

The provision for back taxes is IN the bill.

How can anyone know for sure that it is or isn't when the bill is still being tampered with in smoky back rooms? Besides, if you think rounding up 12+ million illegals is an impossible task today, wait until you try collecting their taxes after this abomination of legislation becomes law. Dream on.

[AlexW]

Does each illegal immigrant also get 10 acres and a mule?

[glymers]

In Ct they are trying to pass a bill that will give the anchor babies college tuition, read it yesterday in Hartford Courant.

[Diogenesis]

Fifth Column Chorus: "We absolutely, positively rock. We've Chappaquidicked America
with a bill no one in Congress could have possibly read,
guaranteeing our relections and pensions, and support of families and hacks, forever,
all financed by the stupid American taxpaying sheeple as suckers,
and in the future financed by their stupid children and grandchildren,
in a bill hacktogether in smokey rooms by La Raza, and kept in secret from America ... by us.

The American sheeple are now our bitches. So its time to get drunk
and sandwich some unsuspecting waitresses."

[Guenevere]

bttt

[cpdiii]

Extreme anger - words fail me.

My wife is from Mexico. She came here legally. She went to school here legally and paid out of state tuition. She lives the American dream and did it the correct and legal way. She is mad as hell about this bill.

[sirchtruth]

Why is Bush so in love with illegal immigrants? Did they work for him or something in the past? He doesn't know it yet, but he is taking a nosedirive right into a disastorous outcome.

It pains me, but I can no longer support this President, because obviously cares nothing about what the majority of his party and Amercians are telling him.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

I love the phrase "difficult to determine tax liability" with respect to illegals.

.....like it's EASY FOR THE REST OF US to determine OUR tax liability?

Isn't it 67,000 pages of IRS tax code now?

"Difficulty" has never been an allowable excuse for law abiding U.S. citizens with respect to determining our tax liability and filing our returns.

Oh, if only our nation's capitol would break off and fall into the sea! Our government has become a hateful, stinking pile of corruption.

Criminals have taken over the country.

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

Please extend my welcome to your wife.

[LachlanMinnesota]

Where can I read the text to see it?

[Diogenesis]

" Criminals have taken over the country."

"WELCOME TO THE REAL AMERICA WHERE CRIMINALS GET TO BE
CELEBRITIES AND CELEBRITIES GET AWAY WITH MURDER."
"TO DIE FOR" Columbia Pictures

[EverOnward]

BS. This is just more of the nonsense made up BS from the rabid Bush haters. The provision for back taxes is IN the bill. This bill is a terrible and should be defeated but the rabid Bush haters do NOT help matters when they manufacture LIES about the bill.

Confusing the unworthy American people furuther on what BS nonsense is in or out of this BS-give-the-country-away-screw-the-American-citizen bill is part and parcel of the traitors who are jamming it down our throats. We're going to argue about the way the chairs are set up on the Titanic? BTW, how do you know what's in the bill since the rest of us are kept in the dark?

[Cyropaedia]

Uh, sorry, but WH spokesman Scott Stanzel is on the record as saying they will only be required to follow through on future taxes :

The dropping of the back-tax provision was not made clear in the announcement of the immigration reform proposal on Thursday. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, speaking in reference to illegal immigrants seeking legal status, said, "You've got to pay your taxes." He did not state whether he was referring to back taxes, future taxes, or both.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel, asked in a telephone interview yesterday to clarify Chertoff's remark, said it referred only to future taxes.

"It is important that the reformed immigration system is workable and cost efficient," Stanzel said. "Determining the past tax liability would have been very difficult and costly and extremely time consuming."

Oops. The cat's out of the bag...

[Jim Noble]

The worst aspect of this whole business, by far, is the rush to make it easy for these criminal deadbeats to receive benefits that are difficult or impossible for native-born Americans to get.

That any poor or unfortunate countryman of ours has to go through hoops, hire expensive advocates, wait for years, and then maybe not get these benefits anyway while Jose who is openly breaking the law has our government chasing him to give him benefits is astounding, and disgraceful.

And of course it is the end of Medicaid, which may have been Kennedy's purpose all along.

State Medicaid programs which are barely viable now will be crushed under the weight of thirty million (if not more) new nontaxpaying clients.

Oh well. At least there won't be any gay marriages in Ohio.

[Jagman]

I finally understand the true genius of Karl Rove. He and W really constitute a liberal sleeper cell whose mission is to destroy the GOP. How else to explain all of the long-term disasters they have visited on the party, from the education bill to the prescription drug bill to this. These programs will be a drag on the country long after W is cannoned off the planet.

Meanwhile, the positive things they did—i.e., the tax cuts—are ephemeral at best (the one exception here is the Supreme court appointments, but even these would have been mediocre if a party rebellion hadn't forced them to reconsider Miers). One has to also assume the liberals have been in on it from the start. Rove, you magnificent bastard!Or, just, you bastard!

[Diogenesis]

El Presidente: "Bring everyone you know.
We will give you free education, homes,
medical care, and you won't have to pay taxes
or even get a license to drive or practice medicine."

[varon]

"Chertoff thought it would be too challenging to accurately determine the amount of an applicant's back taxes," she said.

So, now we know the Department of Homeland Security is mathematically challenged. That explains why they used colors instead of numbers in the terrorism threat advisory scale.

Is our country great, or what? What other nation provides its village idiots with high ranking government jobs?

[napscoordinator]

lol. The hits keep on coming.

[scooby321]

Im done with the GOP and I think Bush is the worst President in history. First he said Putin was a good man. I forgave him for that ( KGB). He could have contained Saddam , I backed him even today for that mistake. But now this he is a disaster.

[varon]

Administration officials said many illegal immigrants do not get paychecks that can be audited, making it difficult to determine tax liability.

Must be the word "estimated" does not exist in the vocabulary of government employees. Hmmmmm, in that case, why are some of us paying estimated quarterlies???

[pleikumud]

Converting the millions of illegal aliens to legal citizenship should be a top priority, and the provision for a $5,000 fine is an adequate penalty. The collection of future taxes will be more important than the net revenue after collection expenses of back taxes. But if the border door isn’t slammed shut to more illegals, it will all be meaningless. Our Congressmorons have failed miseraby by allowing this invasion of the United States to continue. As the Republicans continue to abandon Ronald Reagan and the Constitution, they smell more like Democrats, who are socialist traitors.

[browardchad]

The provision for back taxes is IN the bill.

Have you seen the bill?
Has anyone seen the bill?

I'm inclined to believe the Globe on this, since there's been a lot of talk about the $5,000 fine, and absolutely no talk about back taxes in this amnesty version.

That's a clue.

If true, it's not surprising that Chertoff would object; he's admitting that many of these people (contrary to the "hardworking, taxpaying immigrant" rhetoric) have either been paid under the table, or are using a bogus SS#. Does that mean the IRS will back off the poor unfortunates who've had their identities stolen and are hounded for back taxes on these illegals' income? I woouldn't bet on it. The IRS will forego millions in illegal immigrant back taxes, but they'll hound honest victims of illegal fraud to bankruptcy.

[Cyropaedia]

I finally understand the true genius of Karl Rove. He and W really constitute a liberal sleeper cell whose mission is to destroy the GOP. How else to explain all of the long-term disasters they have visited on the party, from the education bill to the prescription drug bill to this. These programs will be a drag on the country long after W is cannoned off the planet.

Sorta makes you feel like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense : you're dead, you just don't realize it...

[Glenn]

This is probably the best part of the bill. The majority of low wage workers would be eligible for EIC. That would cost us dearly.

[Cyropaedia]

Converting the millions of illegal aliens to legal citizenship should be a top priority

Sure. For the DEMOCRATS.

NOT for REPUBLICANS.

Christ, '86 Amnesty is still paying dividends for the 'Rats via the ballot box.

I guess the GOP really does want to got the way of the Whigs.

[Bernard]

If they want to be American Citizens, they should not be allowed to get tax breaks right away. In fact, each one of them should be required to sit at a kitchen table with a pencil, calculator, and a book of instructions and forms to complete their back taxes. (In English only)

If they get it right, they can stay. If they get anything on the tax return wrong, they should be immediately ejected and never allowed back in the United States.

And I hope they all have to file the AMT form and pay the tax.

[Chuck Dent]

There's an element to this process that has been referenced somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but in reality, may be quite attractive.

I speak, of course, about citizens filing their own amnesty applications.

Here's the point: illegals by definition have no truly proper form of identity. (Forget matriculas, drivers licenses, etc - these were all issued on non-binding IDs as well.)

That means any starting point will require some sort of tracking ID to be assigned by ICE. What's to stop me from filing an application under whatever name I wish to get an ID? Then, as I go through the process, how is ICE going to determine that I'm actually an existing citizen? (That is, if they don't have my fingerprints on file anywhere ie I've never been arrested, etc?)

I'm not being facetious; how is ICE going to prevent citizens from getting whole new parallel identities?

[savedbygrace]

You don’t know what’s in the bill. If you’re saying you know, then you’re either a liar or a Senate Staff lawyer.

[cbkaty]

Bush who? He “was” once our President....

[Cyropaedia]

That (EIC) would be added later. Rector from the Heritage Foundation seems to think so. He said once the millions of illegals are officially legalized then it ultimately becomes very difficult and politically impractical to prevent them from qualifying for these kinds of programs. He said it was sort of like trying to close the barn doors after the livestock has stampeded through. Rector said if you are really serious about illegals not being not receiving benefits then the key is to prevent amnesty in the first place.

[Graymatter]

the administration called for the provision to be removed due to concern that it would be too difficult to figure out which illegal immigrants owed back taxes...

Oh, they'll get that money. They'll use the AHH system of estimation. You know, arbitrary and high-handed. Positively no need for accuracy. Pay what we tell you, or go to jail. Works for everybody else!

[WestCoastGal]

"Determining the past tax liability would have been very difficult and costly and extremely time consuming."

Oh gosh, they have no time to figure it out.

Probably because they’re spending so much time auditing American citizens for pennies owed on a possible tax mistake.

Oh yeah, BTW we’re screwed. I never expected them to do this the right way and protect those of us who worked all our lives to provide our families with a good future.

I have finally got it through my head that people from other countries who break the law have more rights than I do.

Well, maybe it would be too difficult for them, after all there are parties and playtime waiting for them soon and the illegals get paid cash anyway.

[pleikumud]

You prefer that the illegal aliens be permanently illegal? Or do you envision putting 20 million people on railroad boxcars bound for the Mexican border? Get real.

[don-o]

Where can I read the text to see it?

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas

Search for S1348. Hotlinking does not seem to work. This is the original form of the bill.

[Graymatter]

Bush haters do NOT help matters when they manufacture LIES about the bill.

Do YOU have a copy?

I'm no Bush hater...but I'm not a happy Bushie these days, either.

[grey_whiskers]

The provision for back taxes is IN the bill.

Can you substantiate this?

[reg45]

Does each illegal immigrant also get 10 acres and a mule?

Make that ten acres and a burro.

[kindred]

President Bush and the democrats are trying to bring in an amnesty program that will effectively destroy America’s sovereignty and destroy our economy. Worst of all, I believe they know it but are arrogant and foolish and self deceived idiots.

[don-o]

My link in #45 does not work either. One can go to the Library of Congress site then navigate to “Thomas”. Then search for S1348. As I mentioned this is the original form of the bill.