Joe Guzzardi,FloydReports.com
Established 15 years ago,the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number [ITIN] is a seemingly innocuous administrative requirement that the Internal Revenue Service assigns to anyone who is employed and pays taxes. According to the IRS website,the numbers are used for federal tax reporting only. But since ITINs,as they are commonly known,are issued to wage earners regardless of immigration status,they’ve frequently been abused by the aliens who hold them.
Although the real estate crisis is fading from our memory,it’s important to recall that the ITIN was the vehicle used in lieu of Social Security numbers,which then legitimized the disastrous lending policy of providing home mortgages to unqualified illegal aliens. With bankers as their willing abettors,and while the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation purposely looked the other way,aliens took out home loans using ITINs as their major form of identification. Bankers,only too-eager to accommodate poverty-level applicants with balloon financing for homes they could barely make the first payment on,raked in big money. To the bankers,aliens represented the “new market.”Today,five years later,the nation is still reeling from the avalanche of foreclosures that followed.
For aliens,the ITIN is an extremely useful vehicle. Since the IRS isn’t required to share its information with any other federal agency,including immigration authorities,the promise of intra-agency confidentiality allows aliens to file tax returns without fear of deportation. At the same time,holding an ITIN enables aliens to authenticate their presence in the United States and prove that they have paid taxes. This information could be crucial if Congress ever enacted an amnesty.
The ITIN’s improper use is once again in the news. The Federation for American Immigration Reform,in its recent analysis entitled “Treasury Department Says Illegal Aliens Collection Billions in Tax Credits,” revealed that according to the Department of Treasury’s Inspector General,more than $4.2 billion….
I can only tell you my hair is rising up on the back of my neck I knew nothing about this and it horrible to know this and how come our Federal Government is not stopping this from happening this is beyond horrible.
Didn't Obama or maybe Barry Soetoro or maybe it was Harrison J Bounel (042-68-4425) say there would be CHANGE when he went in but I guess the only CHANGE there is the change in his pocket.