That Giant Sucking Sound

Listen (shhhhh) to what the flower people say

Listen (shhhhh) it’s getting louder every day.

—Spinal Tap, (Listen to the) Flower People

I think Ross Perot just might have been right about that giant sucking sound south of the border, although this time it’s not NAFTA that’s causing it.

It’s not getting a ton of national run—yet—but an investigative report aired last week by WTHR 13 in Indianapolis attempts to shed light on a massive illegal alien tax scam.  At the core of the matter are refunds given out by the IRS under the Additional Child Tax Credit, which allows even families that pay zero in taxes to claim up to $1,000 per child; in cases where this results in a negative tax liability, the IRS actually sends the filer a check.  According to the WTHR report, huge numbers of illegal aliens are using this program to collect billions in federal dollars.

The problem itself isn’t new.  Back in 2011, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration issued a report titled “Individuals Who Are Not Authorized To Work in the United States Were Paid $4.2 Billion in Refundable Credits.” 

The title alone says a mouthful, doesn’t it?

The data from the Inspector General’s report reveals that in 2010, of 3 million returns filed under an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number—a substitute for a Social Security number issued for tax filing purposes, and almost exclusively to illegals—less than a quarter paid any taxes, while over two-thirds claimed the ACTC credit.  $4 billion in ACTC credits were paid out, against $870 million in tax payments collected, for a net outgo of $3.13 billion.    

In 2010 alone.

That’s right, your federal government in 2010 took over $3 billion from you and just gave it away to illegal aliens.  This happens every year.  Between 2005 and 2010, over $7 billion in ACTC refunds was handed out to people who are in this country illegally.  And the problem is getting drastically worse, as ACTC payments to illegals have risen over 400% (from $927 million in 2005 to $400 billion in 2010) over that time.   The IRS has been made aware of the issue, and the Inspector General has made specific recommendations for dealing with it; yet the IRS simply shrugs and says “that’s just the way the law is, nothing we can do about it.”

Funny how that hasn’t seemed to stop the Obama administration in any other area.

Congressional Republicans have tried to do something about this problem with the law this spring, but have been blocked by the usual suspects.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says restricting these credits to citizens unfairly targets children of poor Hispanic workers, many of whom were born here and are therefore citizens, even if their parents are not.  Leticia Miranda, senior policy advisor for La Raza—always known as a staunch advocate of our Constitution and U.S. sovereignty—says it’s “outrageous and it’s crazy” to impose the burden of removing these credits from people making close to minimum wage and raising children in this country.

Well, that’s where the WTHR report gets interesting.  It seems that not all of these children about whom Senator Reid and Ms. Miranda are worried are actually in the U.S.  In fact, many of them aren’t even the children of the illegal aliens claiming tax credits for them.  According to the WTHR report, it is commonplace for those claiming ACTC credits under an ITIN to claim credits for children still in Mexico (or wherever their country of origin is), or for nieces and nephews.  The report cites one example where four different illegals filed returns claiming 20 children at a single trailer home address—all of whom are actually in Mexico, according to the illegal whose address it actually is—totaling $29,000 in tax refund payments.  In another example, an illegal says he received a $9,000 refund including tax credits for his children living in Indiana and four nieces and nephews still in Mexico.

This, of course, is what happens when you create an entitlement-welfare culture.  If the government is going to provide everything for free, people will come with their hands out.  When you combine that with the inefficiency and incompetency that is inherent in any government bureaucracy, and it’s only a matter of time before they figure out how to cheat the system.  We already provide food stamps, free public schools, and free hospital care for illegals.  Now we’re literally handing out free money for anyone bold enough to tell the lie.  Yet somehow it’s the wealthy who already pay the vast majority of the tab for all these freebies that are the villains. 

It’s outrageous and crazy, all right.  But there are a couple of additional nuggets in this tale that you might overlook.

First, these people are filing tax returns and receiving refund checks.  Those checks have to be sent somewhere.  What this means is the United States federal government—you know, the one so desperately insisting that the border is secure and that defending that border is its province alone—knows who and where these people are.  Yet it does absolutely nothing about it.  Nada.  It just keeps cutting the checks, redistributing (in many cases because of outright fraud) money it took from you by force to people who have no legal right to be here in the first place.

The other interesting tidbit here lay in the concept of the Individual Tax Identification Number.  Illegal aliens aren’t eligible for a Social Security number, yet are required to file income tax returns (let’s just leave aside the inherent nonsequitur in that).  To do that, they have to obtain this ITIN.

An I.D.

A freaking federal I.D.

Now, these are people who, almost by definition, are the poorest of the poor.  Bereft of resources.  Making close to minimum wage, according to La Raza’s Leticia Miranda.  Indeed, much of the justification for those who oppose reforming the system is the need created by these people’s abject poverty.  Yet when it is necessary for them to obtain a federal handout, they don’t seem to have any trouble obtaining the required I.D., even when to do so they have to—at least ostensibly—risk arrest and deportation.

Contrast this reality with the shrill hypothetical complaints many of these same people on the Left make that requiring a simple I.D. to vote is too onerous a burden to place on blacks and other minorities.  They can’t afford it.  They can’t get to the government office that gives them out.  Well, some 2 million illegal aliens a year manage to overcome those obstacles when it’s time to collect free money.

That giant sucking sound?  That’s your money heading south, and with it, your country.  Meanwhile, the voting conga line forms to the Left.

Listen (shhhh).