Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

Tax Returns Rise for Immigrants in U.S. Illegally - New York Times

A couple of days ago I mentioned problems with illegal immigrants stealing social security numbers so that they can receive social security benefits. Some of them have even filed tax returns using stolen social security numbers.

It turns out though, that there is a legal way for illegal immigrants to file their taxes in the U.S. From the New York Times:

With the tax deadline approaching, illegal immigrants are sending in federal returns in what appear to be record numbers despite fears heightened by recent immigration raids around the country.

The increase in filings comes amid talk of an immigration overhaul, with some proposals introduced in Congress linking amnesty to the payment of taxes. Many illegal immigrants showing up at tax preparation offices around the country say they hope that filing a return will create a paper trail that could lead to citizenship one day.

...

Illegal immigrants do not have Social Security numbers, but the Internal Revenue Service allows them to file taxes by assigning applicants individual taxpayer identification numbers. The numbers were introduced in 1996 to encourage noncitizens with United States income, including foreign investors, to file returns. It is generally accepted that most of the 11 million numbers issued since then have gone to illegal immigrants.

The I.R.S., which does not ask about immigration status, is barred from divulging taxpayer information, with very limited exceptions, to other agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security.

That's a major shame, because these people don't belong here. They broke the law to get here. The government should use every resource available to send them home.

Organizations pushing for stricter immigration enforcement have criticized the use of the individual numbers by illegal immigrants, saying that allowing them to file returns, pay taxes and receive refund checks legitimizes their illegal presence. But the I.R.S. says it is just doing its job as a tax collector, and is not an immigration enforcement agency.

“Clearly, we maintain a separation between the two systems,” Mark W. Everson, the commissioner of the I.R.S., said recently. “We want your money whether you are here legally or not and whether you earned it legally or not.”

No... I'm not going to go there. I'll just let that statement stand...

In the Queens center, Ana Andrade, 32, from Mexico, had other incentives. She presented a W-2 form that showed withholding of more than $3,000 from the $24,000 she had earned as a cook in a Manhattan restaurant, at $10 an hour. Like more than seven million such W-2 forms nationwide, hers bore a false Social Security number.

No problem, the senior tax specialist explained. Her return would be filed under her ITIN, with the problematic W-2 form, and the I.R.S. would simply credit her wages to her ITIN. The result: a $2,000 refund, based mainly on child credits for her two American-born children, 9 and 10.

"Hers bore a false Social Security number". And, if it had been a stolen social security number? What then? Would the owner have had to pay?

Child Credits? A $2,000 refund? Talk about rewarding illegal behavior!

At the next table, Elsa Forero, 35, from Colombia, knew no refund was possible. She watched anxiously as a tax specialist and a volunteer parsed her cash wages as a baby sitter and her deductions for two children, including a 4-year-old son born in New York. The bottom line: She had to pay the federal government $579, but could expect a state tax credit for $115.

“I want to pay taxes because I live in this country and I like to follow the rules,” she said.

And how would she pay?

“Little by little,” she said.

"I want to pay taxes because I live in this country and I like to follow the rules," she said. All of the rules except the laws that say she shouldn't be here in the first place!

Let's face it folks, these people have broken the law. They don't belong here. We can't let them "pick and choose" which laws they'll obey and which ones they won't.

If Elsa Forero wants to "follow the rules", lets start with the one that says "GO HOME, YOU ARE HERE ILLEGALLY".

Hat tip to OrbusMax.

Hope that the Sonics will finally "go"

Good riddance to whiney multi-millionaires wanting more public funding for their games. It's about time that the constant threats to leave if they don't get millions of dollars in public funding were called.

OLYMPIA -- Sonics and Storm owner Clay Bennett said the teams now have "little hope of remaining in the Puget Sound region" after state lawmakers announced Monday they will not vote on public funding for a proposed $500 million Renton arena before the Legislature adjourns this weekend.

Despite last-minute pleas from arena backers, legislative leaders emerged from closed-door meetings with Gov. Christine Gregoire on Monday night to say there was not enough support for the proposal.

Please... we need public funding to be able to survive. Ticket sales and merchandising just aren't enough.

Gregoire called Bennett to ask whether talks could continue after the session. But Bennett did not seem convinced that would do any good.

In a written statement, Bennett called the lack of action in Olympia a "staggering and quite likely a debilitating blow" to prospects for a "world class" arena.

"By its inaction the Legislature has delivered the message that they are indifferent to the notion of the Sonics and the Storm leaving the market," he said.

How about not "indifferent", but tired of the [expletive deleted] extortion!

Bennett said he remains willing to work with Gregoire and lawmakers "to explore every conceivable funding option," including private funding. "But at this time we have no other concepts on the table," he said.

Private funding? What a concept. They want the arena for private purposes.

It was the third unsuccessful attempt in as many years by Sonics and Storm owners to get stadium deals similar to what the Mariners and Seahawks got in the 1990s.

Deals that should have never been made in the first place. The people voted against funding the Mariners stadium deal. The legislature had to declare an "emergency" to ram it down our throats. The Seahawks deal was just as bad, but it narrowly won public approval.

At first, the teams tried to get more than $200 million for an expansion of Seattle's KeyArena. When that failed, owners set their sights on a new suburban arena.

...

Bennett has pledged to make a "good faith" effort to secure an arena deal in the Seattle area. But unless he gets a deal by Oct. 31, he has said he may relocate the teams after their KeyArena leases end in 2010.

The Sonics' legislation sought authorization for up to $300 million in King County taxes for the Renton arena. The taxes on hotels, car rentals and restaurants are now used to pay off debt from Safeco and Qwest fields and the demolished Kingdome.

So they couldn't get $200 million out of Seattle, so they asked for $300 million from King County? What part of NO don't these extortionists understand?

Isn't it time we held these multi-million dollar entertainment franchises to their word? Mr. Bennett says if he doesn't get his public money he'll move the team in 2010. It's time we called his bluff.

But Kessler said she thinks the Sonics -- aware that people were wary of another stadium deal -- tried finesse instead of force.

"I think they tried to keep it sort of low-key so they wouldn't frighten anybody into an early 'no,' " she said.

Maybe they know that we're tired of bending over for every sports team that threatens to take their ball and play in another neighborhood if they can't pick our pockets. They can't leave fast enough for me.

Cross posted at NWBloggers.com

SPAM

I've updated the site code this morning. The new update should be invisible to most users. If you find something broken, please let me know.

This morning's update was long overdue. As many of you know, I hate SPAM with a passion (not this kind of spam though). Because of this, I've been using the AKismet filter to block spam. It's a very good filter, regularly catching almost every bit of SPAM this site gets hit with.

Occasionaly a SPAM gets through, usually when an exception occurs in the handler. I've fixed that. If an exception occurs in the AKismet processing, the items will be rejected immediately. The most frequent cause for these exceptions that I encountered was when the commenter or the trackback pinger did not supply a User Agent string. That's generally a good indication that they're a bot.

What's worse though is when a valid comment, or a valid trackback gets trapped by AKismet. Up until now I've had no way (in my code) to report false positives to AKismet. I've added code that will let me do that now, and that will restore your comments or trackbacks that AKismet blocks.

If you're a commenter, you shouldn't see any changes, except that your comments will eventually appear on the site after they get through moderation. If you're a trackback pinger, and your ping gets blocked by AKismet, you'll now receive an error notification letting you know that your ping was trapped and is awaiting moderation.

Currently, there are three bloggers that ping this site with trackbacks that regularly get blocked by AKismet. I don't know why AKismet regularly blocks your posts, but I should be able to stop that now, by reporting the false positives. In the past you received no notifications. Now you will.

If any of you have problems with comments, or trackbacks, please let me know. My email address is perri at perrinelson dot com. If you're a spammer, don't bother sending me mail. I won't respond. If you're a legitimate commenter or trackback pinger, I will try to fix the problems.

By the way, please keep your computers up to date with the latest security patches. According to a recent report, botnets are on the rise. You wouldn't want your computer to be assimilated...

If it does become assimilated and starts spamming, I'll block its IP address. Then you won't be able to trackback or comment, even if your comments are legitimate.