PORTLAND, Ore. — It’s less than a week until Tax Day, and amid an ongoing debate on illegal immigration, we wanted to Verify: Do undocumented immigrants file taxes?
The numbers are tough to track here, from the number of undocumented immigrants living and working in the U.S., to the number of those undocumented immigrants and their employers who contribute to payroll benefits, to the undocumented immigrants who choose to file taxes in the first place.
According to research, many undocumented immigrants will apply for a job using a fake social security number. In turn, only a handful of states require all employers to use a system called E-Verify that validates an employee’s eligibility and social security number.
There are two ways an undocumented immigrant can file taxes.
- They can use a fake social security number on their W-2, which they in turn use to file their taxes each year.
- They can apply for an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which takes about 6-10 weeks to process. This allows anyone without a social security number to file taxes, but it doesn’t authorize work in the U.S., grant any level of citizenship, doesn't give any social security benefits or allow the filer to qualify a dependent for earned income tax credit. About 50 percent of undocumented immigrants file tax returns using the ITIN, for a total of $12 billion state and local taxes in recent tax years, according to Forbes.
According to the IRS, undocumented immigrants who work are not only obligated by law to file taxes, but this could also create a paper trail of compliance in case they end up applying for citizenship later on.
The most recent data from the IRS comes from 2015, when 4.4 million tax returns without social security numbers were filed totaling more than $5.5 billion in payroll and Medicare taxes and $23.6 billion in total taxes.
And according to research from the Social Security Administration, undocumented immigrants paid nearly $13 billion into social security in 2010, a program they are unable to benefit from at this time.
We can Verify: Yes, some undocumented immigrants do pay taxes.
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