On Wednesday, May 02, 2012, I headlined a piece with "IRS refunds 'Illegals' $4.2 billion for kids, nieces, nephews--living in Mexico." The piece explained how illegal immigrants were bilking U.S. taxpayers by claiming dependent children that did not even live in the United States.
From that piece:
Millions of illegal immigrants are getting a bigger tax refund than you. Eyewitness News shows a massive tax loophole that provides billions of dollars in tax credits to undocumented workers and, in many cases, people who have never stepped foot in the United States. And you are paying for it!
Note: This is part one in a two-part series. Read part two here.
Fact Check.org has done some research and dispels rhetoric saying those reports are not true.
Q: Does the IRS pay billions in tax refunds to workers who are in the U.S. illegally?
A: Yes. The Treasury Department’s Inspector General determined that $4.2 billion was paid in 2010, up from less than $1 billion in 2005. Leading Democrats are resisting a bill that would stop future payments.
More:
House bill by Texas Republican Sam Johnson (H.R. 1956) had collected 60 GOP cosponsors as of May 10. It would require that at least one parent file a valid Social Security number to collect a refundable child tax credit. A similar provision reached the House Ways and Means Committee April 18. Committee members approved it by a party-line vote of 22 to 12, with only Republicans voting for and only Democrats voting against it.
There are Democrats not willing to defend illegals from receiving benefits, such as Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri who calls the report "alarming" and urges the IRS to act.
...“While the total amount of payments to unauthorized workers is enormous, the trend lines are even more disturbing,” McCaskill wrote in a letter to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman on Sept. 7, 2011. “Wrongful payments of refundable tax credits, should be easy to identify and stop. The law is clear that individuals who are not authorized to work in the United States are not entitled to public benefits.”
But McCaskill is in a tough reelection fight in a conservative state, and other Senate Democrats are not so eager to go after the payments. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid is publicly opposed, for one. “I just think the child tax credit is working just fine and there’s no need to punish children,’’ Reid told The Associated Press in early February.
Rasmussen shows that McCaskill is trailing two of the three Republican challengers in her bid for reelection.
The question conservatives have been asking liberals, for what seems like forever, continues to be relevant when discussing their opposition to a bill that would require a valid Social Security number to obtain IRS benefits..... "what part of illegal is so hard for Democratic politicians to understand?"