Agency
also assigned 15,796 taxpayer IDS to ‘unauthorized aliens’ at single residence
(CNS News) – The Internal Revenue
Service sent 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 to “unauthorized”
alien workers who all used the same address in Atlanta, Ga., in 2011, according
to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
That was not the only Atlanta
address theoretically occupied by thousands of “unauthorized” alien workers
receiving millions in federal tax refunds in 2011. In fact, according to a
TIGTA audit report published last year, four of the top ten addresses to which
the IRS sent thousands of tax refunds to “unauthorized” aliens were in Atlanta.
The IRS sent 11,284 refunds worth a
combined $2,164,976 to unauthorized alien workers at a second Atlanta address;
3,608 worth $2,691,448 to a third; and 2,386 worth $1,232,943 to a fourth.
Other locations on the IG’s Top Ten
list for singular addresses that were theoretically used simultaneously by
thousands of unauthorized alien workers, included an address in Oxnard, Calif,
where the IRS sent 2,507 refunds worth $10,395,874; an address in Raleigh,
North Carolina, where the IRS sent 2,408 refunds worth $7,284,212; an address
in Phoenix, Ariz., where the IRS sent 2,047 refunds worth $5,558,608; an
address in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where the IRS sent 1,972 refunds worth
$2,256,302; an address in San Jose, Calif., where the IRS sent 1,942 refunds
worth $5,091,027; and an address in Arvin, Calif., where the IRS sent 1,846
refunds worth $3,298,877.
Since 1996, the IRS has issued what
it calls Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to two classes of
persons: 1) non-resident aliens who have a tax liability in the United States,
and 2) aliens living in the United States who are “not authorized to work in
the United States.”
The IRS has long known it was giving
these numbers to illegal aliens, and thus facilitating their ability to work
illegally in the United States. For example, the Treasury Inspector General’s
Semiannual Report to Congress published on Oct. 29, 1999—nearly fourteen years
ago—specifically drew attention to this problem.
“The IRS issues Individual Taxpayer
Identification Numbers (ITINs) to undocumented aliens to improve nonresident
alien compliance with tax laws. This IRS practice seems counter-productive to
the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s (INS) mission to identify
undocumented aliens and prevent unlawful alien entry,” TIGTA warned in that
long-ago report.
The inspector general’s 2012 audit
report on the IRS’s handling of ITINs was spurred by two IRS employees who went
to member of Congress “alleging that IRS management was requiring employees to
assign Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN) even when the
applications were fraudulent.”In an August 2012 press release accompanying the audit report, TIGTA said the report “validated” the complaints of the IRS employees.
“TIGTA’s audit found that IRS
management has not established adequate internal controls to detect and prevent
the assignment of an ITIN to individuals submitting questionable applications,”
said Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George. “Even
more troubling, TIGTA found an environment which discourages employees from
detecting fraudulent applications.”
In addition to the 23,994 tax
refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 that the IRS sent to a single address in
Atlanta, the IG also discovered that the IRS had assigned 15,796 ITINs to
unauthorized aliens who presumably resided at a single Atlanta address.
The IRS, according to TIGTA, also
assigned ITINs to 15,028 unauthorized aliens presumably living at a single
address in Dallas, Texas, and 10,356 to unauthorized aliens presumably living
at a single address in Atlantic City, N.J.
Perhaps the most remarkable act of
the IRS was this: It assigned 6,411 ITINs to unauthorized aliens presumably
using a single address in Morganton, North Carolina. According to the 2010
Census, there were only 16,681 people in Morganton. So, for the IRS to have
been correct in issuing 6,411 ITINS to unauthorized aliens at a single address
Morganton it would have meant that 38 percent of the town’s total population
were unauthorized alien workers using a single address.
TIGTA said there were 154 addresses
around the country that appeared on 1,000 or more ITIN applications made to the
IRS.
Source: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/irs-sent-46378040-refunds-23994-unauthorized-aliens-1-atlanta-address#sthash.t7sxuFL4.dpuf
Comments
The refunds from the “Top Ten Cities” listed above total $86,352,307. Economist Milton Friedman once said: “You can
have open borders or you can have a welfare state, but you cannot have both.” He
was correct, but he was ignored. Most of
the money the federal government spends and gives away is wasted on scams. We can either reduce the federal government’s
footprint or we can go broke.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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