A sympathetic media rarely reports on the negative impact illegal immigration has on the United States, to include criminal behavior, but is the U.S. government doing its part to stop the crime?
The Internal Revenue Service may not be, according to a CNS News investigation.
The online news outlet reported that in a five year period, 2011 through 2016, more than 1.3 million cases of identity theft were documented by the IRS involving illegal aliens who had been issued Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers.
IRS An ITIN is a tax processing number for certain nonresident and resident aliens, their spouses, and dependents who cannot get a Social Security number, according to the IRS website.
When asked by CNS News how many of the 1.3 million documented cases had been referred for criminal prosecution, the agency couldn’t say if it had referred even one of these cases.
But that’s not the worst of it.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), which oversees the IRS, discovered approximately 1.2 million cases in 2017 alone of an illegal alien working in the U.S. who had filed a tax return reporting wages earned while using a Social Security Number that belonged to someone else or was fabricated, CNS News reported.
In either case, it would constitute a felony, according to the Social Security Act.
Again, the IRS also could not say whether it referred any of these cases for criminal prosecution.
And Americans wonder why there are anywhere from 12-20 illegal immigrants now in the country?
The real victims here being American citizens.
“Employment identity theft can cause a significant burden to innocent taxpayers, including the incorrect computation of taxes based on income that does not belong to them,” TIGTA said in a report released last month.
he numbers of these cases were cited in the TIGTA report released last month. It was entitled, “Most Employment Identity Theft Victims Have Not Been Notified That Their Identities Are Being Used by Others for Employment.”
In the approximately 1.3 million cases, TIGTA said the IRS had placed a “marker” on the accounts of taxpayers whose identities the IRS believed had been stolen. In the approximately 1.2 million cases, TIGTA itself discovered the misuse of Social Security Numbers by ITIN holders by reviewing IRS records.
The IRS began issuing ITINs in 1996 to provide foreign nationals who have a tax liability an identification number to use when filing tax returns, although the chief counsel of the IRS determined that the foreign nationals living inside the U.S. who qualify are in fact illegal aliens.
In effect, the IRS has embraced a policy to “‘legalize’ illegal aliens” that “increases the potential for fraud,” the TIGTA warned in a 1999 report, according to CNS News.