Republicans are looking to deny child tax credits to illegal immigrants — refund checks averaging $1,800 — in an effort that has roused anger among Hispanics and some Democratic lawmakers.
The proposal, which would require people who claim the federal credit to have Social Security numbers to prove they’re legal workers, is being offered as a way to help pay for extending the Social Security tax cut for most American wage earners. It would trim federal spending by about $10 billion over a decade.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada says the proposal unfairly goes after the children of poor Hispanic workers. Such kids often are U.S. citizens, even when their parents aren’t, because they were born in this country.
“People who are making close to the minimum wage and are raising children in this country — and we’re asking them to pay for the payroll-tax cut?” said Leticia Miranda, senior policy adviser of the National Council of La Raza. “It’s outrageous and it’s crazy.”
On the other side, Republicans and some Democrats say what’s crazy is even having a debate over whether the government should be cutting checks to people who have sneaked into the country illegally. It’s hard to imagine there isn’t a healthy majority, even in the Democrat-controlled Senate, to stop the practice — if it’s actually brought to a vote.
“We have rules about tax credits and benefits, and it seems to me they need to be applied fairly and across the board,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat who is facing a difficult re-election bid in Missouri. “If there are rules, they need to be enforced. I think it’s just that simple. I don’t think it’s complicated.”
Illegal immigrants have been barred from other refundable tax credits, such as the earned income tax credit for lower-income workers. But a 1997 law enacting the child tax credit doesn’t specifically exclude them from collecting that separate benefit. It was significantly expanded in 2001 and 2009 so that many more people are eligible for refundable credits, though the expanded credit is slated to expire at the end of the year along with other Bush-era tax cuts.
“Although the law prohibits aliens residing without authorization in the United States from receiving most federal public benefits, an increasing number of these individuals are filing tax returns claiming this refundable credit,” Rep. Sam Johnson, Texas Republican, said when the House debated the payroll-tax cut measure in December. “Illegal immigrants bilked $4.2 billion from the U.S. taxpayers [in 2010]. I think that it’s time that we fixed it.”
The situation has Democrats in a box. If they fight the GOP effort to cut back payments of the tax credit, they’ll be favoring the delivery of refunds to people who not only don’t owe income taxes but aren’t supposed to be in the country in the first place.
What’s more, closing the loophole would raise real money — an estimated $10 billion over 10 years under the approach favored by House Republicans.
The Treasury Department says that in the 2010 filing year more than $4 billion in child-credit refunds went to 2.3 million people who filed tax returns but didn’t have Social Security numbers proving they were citizens or legal workers. That’s a fourfold increase over five years earlier.
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