Is taking out TAX DEDUCTIONS for Illegal Labor the solution to ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION?

[$5 submissions]

There's a new bill making the rounds in Congress lately. The IDEA Act.

New IDEA (HR-3720) states explicitly that wages and benefits paid to illegals are not tax deductible. It gives employers ?safe harbor? if they use the Internet-based E-Verify program to verify legal status during their hiring process, but it does not require them to do so. During a normal audit, the IRS would run employees? I-9 identification information through the E-Verify program; whenever a worker could not be verified as a lawful employee, the IRS would not allow the deduction of that employee?s wages and benefits as a business expense. This would be, in effect, a tax or penalty on the employment of illegal immigrants. For example, a $10-per-hour illegal employee would cost $16 an hour without the normal tax deductions. With a six-year accumulated statute of limitations, employers will calculate the inevitability of an eventual audit and use E-Verify to clean up their work forces, whether abruptly or incrementally.

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...dea-steve-king

This puts economic pressure on EMPLOYERS instead of focusing solely on supply. What do you think? Better way to deal with illegal immigration or just another FAILED EXPERIMENT?

[brassmonkey]

employer sanctions law works the best

[Voodoo]

I'd vote for it. Why should they be tax deductible? It's ILLEGAL to employ them... Eff No you shouldn't get a tax deduction for them!

[KillerK]

how the hell do you write off "I employ illegals" unless they mean the ones that train ride/bus up to work the fields and then go home.

[raymor]

That would give the government an economic incentive to enforce the law. Hiring illegals is of course against the law, but currently the law is rarely enforced. On the other hand, it implies that it's ok to break the law, that violating the law just means you have to pay a tax. Why would people comply with a new tax law when you're telling them laws don't really have any meaning?

I think the other half of the equation has to be improving LEGAL immigration, cutting down on the paperwork and getting people in faster if they do it legally. There's not a huge demand for illegal car registration stickers, for example, because it's easy enough to get one legally.

[$5 submissions]

Originally Posted by KillerK

how the hell do you write off "I employ illegals" unless they mean the ones that train ride/bus up to work the fields and then go home.

Actually, the law has the effect of compelling EMPLOYERS to prove that all the employees they are claiming deductions for are LEGALLY in the US. If not, they can't claim the business expense and have to pay higher taxes. Documentation is done by interlocking differing agencies' paper trail.

[Barry-xlovecam]

Sounds reasonable ...