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On illegals, taxes, and Social Security

Dittohead not! said:
Are the illegals really costing us billions?




and, if you're interested in reading more, there's some thought provoking information about property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, and so on, and the incentive for illegals to pay taxes in the US:

[h=1]The Truth About Undocumented Immigrants and Taxes[/h]
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I have no idea about the average, but the $12 billion is based on the average workers collecting $31,000 or slightly more than $15/hr.
 
jamesrage said:
!. Illegals work for substandard wages.How are they paying federal income taxes when almost 50% of American households do not?

2.Many illegals work under the table meaning no taxes are collected.

3.Many illegals work as contract labor,meaning the employer does not take out taxes.

4.If illegals are allegedly are using fraudulent social security cards then how does anyone actually know how much of and if any taxes are collected from illegals basically committing identity fraud?

5.Seeing how illegals work for substandard wages then that means they are taking in more than what they pay in taxes.

6.Seeing how illegals help keep down wages and take jobs from Americans by working for substandard wages then that means not only are those illegals taking in more in tax payer funded services than what they pay for in taxes. That means all those Americans whose wages got depressed or out work as a result of illegals working for substandard wages are also using tax payer funded services.
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The taxes that they pay primarily are payroll taxes which feed Medicare and Social Security. Those taxes are not in the 50% you cite. That figure was 47% and dates back to 2009 which was a year in which the IRS handed out a lot of cash incentives to get Americans to spend.
 
JoeTheEconomist said:
I have no idea about the average, but the $12 billion is based on the average workers collecting $31,000 or slightly more than $15/hr.
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Ans the average cost of one kid in school is about $12/year. Cost of health care for a family perhaps 6-10K per year, the list goes on.
 
Dittohead not! said:
So, now the illegals are getting screwed, since they can't benefit from the SS and Medicare taxes they pay. I think that's a good point.

But we can't argue, at the same time, that they're a drain on our taxes can we?
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Illegals aren't getting 'screwed' unless you are saying that every American is getting screwed. It is a cost of doing business here. If they rob a bank, do I have to reimburse the cost of the gas in the getaway car. The money that goes into SS is a dedicated financial system. It is not simply off-setting the cost of other government programs. Your logic turns a left-pocket right pocket into a one pocket system.
 
washunut said:
Ans the average cost of one kid in school is about $12/year. Cost of health care for a family perhaps 6-10K per year, the list goes on.
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Your figures are average cost not marginal cost, but your concept is what I pointed out next. These are left-pocket right pocket cost and revenue.
 
JoeTheEconomist said:
Your figures are average cost not marginal cost, but your concept is what I pointed out next. These are left-pocket right pocket cost and revenue.
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I use average cost purposely. As I said when working. Justifying a resale based on marginal cost versus total cost will slowly put you out of business.
 
washunut said:
I use average cost purposely. As I said when working. Justifying a resale based on marginal cost versus total cost will slowly put you out of business.
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I think most economist look at marginal cost. This is why the pro-tariff people want to stop the Chinese from dumping goods into our market below their 'average' cost. Every business that I have ever worked with looks at marginal cost and marginal revenue as a decision point for whether to take-on the business.

The best argument about the cost of illegals is the cost of border patrol which probably exceeds 12 billion.
 
JoeTheEconomist said:
I think most economist look at marginal cost. This is why the pro-tariff people want to stop the Chinese from dumping goods into our market below their 'average' cost. Every business that I have ever worked with looks at marginal cost and marginal revenue as a decision point for whether to take-on the business.

The best argument about the cost of illegals is the cost of border patrol which probably exceeds 12 billion.
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Don't know what companies you worked for. When talking about one off large pops perhaps, not as a way of doing business day to day.
 
ludin said:
SO they are breaking our immigration laws and committing identity theft

what it means is that someone else is getting screwed over and might not know it.

Sorry, But Illegal Aliens Cost The U.S. Plenty | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD
however yea no whoever wrote that didn't really do their homework.

Illegal immigrants in fact absorb far more in benefits than they contribute. The Heritage Foundation in 2013 found that illegals contribute an average of $10,000 in total taxes (federal and payroll as well as local taxes) but use almost $24,000 in welfare and services, creating a net $14,000 per capita gain per illegal worker.

In a more recent study where I looked at welfare use only (not taxes or other expense) using the much more accurate Survey of Income and Program Participation, I found that 62% of households headed by illegal immigrants used at least one major welfare program
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No, they aren't. I know illegal aliens with perfectly valid Social Security cards obtained before citizenship or immigration status was an issue. All that was an issue was paying the damned tax. The biggest employers of illegals in our city was the government. They were required to pursue Affirmative Action quotas and locals didn't want to work as janitors at the university or in food service at the hospital. They certainly could have. The illegals got the same wages citizens would have gotten, had health insurance, paid all taxes and the only real difference was they wanted to work.

I know people in Mexico who are retired now and are drawing Social Security because they worked for forty years in the U.S.

I couldn't file my income taxes electronically three years ago because someone had already used my SS number, but not my name, to file for free money from the IRS. The government is not interested in interfering with this fraud.
 
Patrickt said:
No, they aren't. I know illegal aliens with perfectly valid Social Security cards obtained before citizenship or immigration status was an issue. All that was an issue was paying the damned tax. The biggest employers of illegals in our city was the government. They were required to pursue Affirmative Action quotas and locals didn't want to work as janitors at the university or in food service at the hospital. They certainly could have. The illegals got the same wages citizens would have gotten, had health insurance, paid all taxes and the only real difference was they wanted to work.

I know people in Mexico who are retired now and are drawing Social Security because they worked for forty years in the U.S.

I couldn't file my income taxes electronically three years ago because someone had already used my SS number, but not my name, to file for free money from the IRS. The government is not interested in interfering with this fraud.
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If they paid into SS for 40 years, how is that "free money" when they get SS benefits? Your last paragraph doesn't fit with the rest of the post.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Are the illegals really costing us billions?

and, if you're interested in reading more, there's some thought provoking information about property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, and so on, and the incentive for illegals to pay taxes in the US:

[h=1]The Truth About Undocumented Immigrants and Taxes[/h]
Click to expand...

Does capitalism actually cognate and care about legal status? Black markets exist for a reason.

We should be privatizing costs not socializing costs.

It is why raising minimum wages in first world economies is good for our more developed economy.
 
Dittohead not! said:
If they paid into SS for 40 years, how is that "free money" when they get SS benefits? Your last paragraph doesn't fit with the rest of the post.
Click to expand...

I was referring to the folks who file bogus returns using other people's SS numbers so the Democrats can hand out "free money". Frequently these bogus returns are filed from prisons and you'd think that would give the IRS a clue but they're too busy destroying hard drives and persecuting enemies of the socialists.
 
Patrickt said:
I was referring to the folks who file bogus returns using other people's SS numbers so the Democrats can hand out "free money". Frequently these bogus returns are filed from prisons and you'd think that would give the IRS a clue but they're too busy destroying hard drives and persecuting enemies of the socialists.
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Oh, that makes sense.
But, how is it only Democrats hand out this free money? Are all SS employees Democrats?
 
Does capitalism actually cognate and care about legal status? Black markets exist for a reason.

We should be privatizing costs not socializing costs.

It is why raising minimum wages in first world economies is good for our more developed economy.
 
danielpalos said:
Does capitalism actually cognate and care about legal status? Black markets exist for a reason.

We should be privatizing costs not socializing costs.

It is why raising minimum wages in first world economies is good for our more developed economy.
Click to expand...

Capitalism does not care about legal status. That's why the way to deal with illegal immigration is to make it too expensive to hire illegals.

and citizens and legal immigrants who choose to work, even when all they're worth is minimum wage, should be better off than those who choose not to work but to live off of the labor of the rest of us.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Capitalism does not care about legal status. That's why the way to deal with illegal immigration is to make it too expensive to hire illegals.

and citizens and legal immigrants who choose to work, even when all they're worth is minimum wage, should be better off than those who choose not to work but to live off of the labor of the rest of us.
Click to expand...

You make it seem like merely making Capital work, instead of "fools and horses" is a Bad idea.
 
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