Individuals who are not authorized to work in the United States were paid $4.2 billion in refundable credits in 2010 – this is the topic of investigative reporting done by an Indianapolis TV station that highlighted the fraud where many ineligible people claim, on their tax returns, the so-called "Additional Child Tax Credit" that amounts in the most flagrant cases to dishonest refunds of well over $10,000 per year – paid to people who had no tax liability to begin with & were claiming nephews & nieces who live in Mexico as their additional children on the IRS form (#8812). Thanks to two subscribers to RTE who separately sent me the above link.
The aforementioned credits currently amount to $1,000 per child & are "refundable" meaning that parents may receive refunds even when they do not owe any tax (i.e., the cash out-flow checks from the government can exceed the parent's tax liability, if any) – in many of these cases the children do not even live in America & are claimed by people who are not really their parents. The scam is catching on - The Treasury Department's Inspector General For Tax Administration determined that $4.2 billion was paid in 2010, up from less than $1 billion in 2005.
Although the TV station's report is currently very popular on the internet it is far from the first to report on this topic – the matter is almost a year old & understandably Congress is not going out of its way to publicize it.
There is the normal partisan divide on the issue – the Republicans act as though they prefer @ least a semblance of propriety & the Democrats vociferously proclaim unlimited spending to help children wherever they are found. Please click on this video to hear twenty five year entrenched Democrat Georgia Congressman John Lewis make an emotional appeal to support children that is backed by the National Council of La Raza who said in January "More than 4 million Latino children and their families would face greater hunger, poverty, and other severe hardships if this (the Republican) proposal is enacted."
The upcoming election is really about whether or not we can find candidates who can discern right from wrong.
Do not hold your breathe - government will not do anything to eliminate nephews and nieces on federal tax returns. Why, you ask? Simple - it is not cost effective. It would cost government large amounts of money to hire thousands of people to audit those returns, and those people are paid good money - not $10.00 an hour.
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