Republican senator Ted Cruz and his co-sponsors Jim Inhofe, John Kennedy and Mike Rounds are pushing to stop the scam by which illegal immigrants use fake Social Security numbers in the United States and the IRS actively lets it go.
Cruz introduced the WALL Act in the Senate in response to Nancy Pelosi passing House bills that will not be taken up by Mitch McConnell. Here are the bill’s provisions, according to KXAN:
Cruz’s attention to the matter is more important than ever.
The Internal Revenue Service ignores warnings from the Social Security administration about illegal aliens using fake Social Security numbers.
This practice is now coming under scrutiny following the revelation that Gustavo Perez Arriaga was using at least two fake Social Security numbers to live in the United States. Arriaga has been charged with the murder of California police corporal Ronil Singh. It is not known whether the IRS ever ignored Arriaga’s fake Social Security numbers directly.
Arriaga was using two fake Social Security numbers, according to available information provided by a source close to law enforcement: 537-89-0142 and 667-28-2314.
Arriaga lived in the United States long enough to rack up multiple arrests for impaired driving. Arriaga was officially wanted for four years, but ICE officers had no contact with him prior to Corporal Singh’s shooting. Stanislaus County sheriff Adam Christianson blames the lack of contact with ICE on sanctuary laws, saying at a press conference that law enforcement should be able to do its job without legislative interference.
Illegal immigrants are able to pay taxes using ITIN numbers provided by the federal government. The IRS put out an official notice in June: “More than 2 million ITINs to expire this year; Renew soon to avoid refund delays.”
The Treasury Inspector General confirmed that the IRS paid out more than $4 billion in tax refunds to ITIN holders in the year 2010.
How many illegal aliens have been acknowledged by the IRS over the years, even despite warnings from the Social Security Administration that the illegal immigrants are not using actual Social Security numbers? That is a question congressional Republicans and Trump administration agencies might want to seek an answer to.
The IRS practice of excusing illegal aliens was revealed during the IRS scandal, kicked off by documented proof of the IRS improperly targeting tea party groups for politically motivated audits and other penalties.
Look at what current Trump administration director of national intelligence Dan Coats said at a hearing when he was a senator: “What we learned is that … the IRS continues to process tax returns with false W-2 information and issue refunds as if they were routine tax returns, and say that’s not really our job. We also learned the IRS ignores notifications from the Social Security Administration that a name does not match a Social Security number, and you use your own system to determine whether a number is valid,” Coats said.
Then-IRS commissioner John Koskinen excused the practice in the 2016 hearing.
“What happens in these situations is someone is using a Social Security number to get a job, but they’re filing their tax return with their [taxpayer identification number],” Koskinen said.
Koskinen admitted that “they are undocumented aliens.”
Koskinen actually said, “They’re paying taxes. It’s in everybody’s interest to have them pay the taxes they owe.”