• Lojcs@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    How is the government getting taxes from people it doesn’t know exist?? I thought you had to file your taxes yourself in America, why or how would the migrants even do that? Or if the employer is doing that, who do they say they are doing it for??

    • Ibaudia@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Undocumented migrants still pay taxes that are built into systems we interact with, like sales, rent, mortgage, etc. They also frequently have payroll taxes taken out, and even file taxes using an ITIN instead of SSN. They also can’t capitalize on govt. programs like section 8 or social security, so they are only able to contribute to these funding pools. Undocumented migrants generate billions per year in taxes for the US.

      • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Is sales tax included in prices? I’ve seen people online saying it’s often not since it varies from place to place?

        • edgemaster72@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Correct, sales tax is not included in pricing in the US. I learned that at a fairly young age when I wanted to spend $20 I had from my birthday on a $20 Lego set when whoops, need another dollar (thankfully my mom was there to cover it)

    • SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz
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      2 months ago

      While immigrants in the country without authorization do not have Social Security numbers, they can file taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN.

      Reports about 3m people file using an ITIN each year, and the number of people expected to legally use them is very small.

      Also says they see about $12B more paid into social security by illegals than paid out.

      As Al Capone found, the government is would rather you pay tax on illegally earned money.

      • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Every couple months I learn of another way the us government interacts with ‘undocumented’ migrants. I find it supremely silly that these people have identification numbers, pay taxes, are counted for the census and participate in elections but they’re still referred to as ‘undocumented’?? They clearly are documented, wtf does ‘undocumented’ mean then?

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It’s a nicer way of saying they’re here illegally. Despite all evidence that immigrants are hard working people with lower than average crime and social problems; we insist on criminalizing them because they didn’t ask permission to cross the border.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        As Al Capone found, the government is would rather you pay tax on illegally earned money.

        That was more an end run around accidentally indicting all the state and federal officials who’d gotten wrapped up in his corruption.

        Capone should have gone down for murder years earlier, but too much of the early Hoover Era FBI was willing to turn a blind eye to Capone’s mafia exploits or rat out informants before they could go to trial.

        • SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz
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          2 months ago

          Yes. But my point is that the IRS has a process for declaring and paying tax on income that you got illegally, whether it’s from being a mobster or working without the right visa.

          Capone didn’t follow that process, so got done for tax evasion.

          These illegal immigrants are paying their taxes, and therefore a) they aren’t exposed to prosecution for tax evasion, and b) the IRS won’t rat them out to ICE.

    • s38b35M5@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Filing taxes is how we get refunds for overpaying in the US.

      Paying taxes is done for us, through withholding out of our paychecks (don’t need a SS#, as a TIN will do here), sales tax on purchases of goods, and in other ways, like connected to housing, etc.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      How is the government getting taxes from people it doesn’t know exist??

      Going to the store and handing over my money for the stuff. There’s a % sales tax at the bottom of my receipt, but how is this possible?! I didn’t tell the government I was going shopping today.

      Drive back home to my apartment, where I pay my rent for the month. My landlord forward a chunk of that money to the city as real estate taxes. But I never formally registered my citizenship at this address, so how can that be?

      Heading to the bar where I earn my living. Most of my income is in tips, which my boss collects and skims the business tax rate off of before distributing the balance. But there’s no bartender’s license to work here, so how did he know to do that?

      Omw home, I’ve got to remember to re-register my car and buy more gas-taxed petrol and damn it feels like there’s a lot of ways for a government to collect tax money from me.

      • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Could you not write this less condescending? I’m sorry I’m not from the US. When I heard people say that sales tax isn’t included in the price and that you need to file your taxes every year I assumed that was how the tax was collected.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I’m sorry I’m not from the US.

          Sales, real estate, and other consumption taxes aren’t unique to the US.

          When I heard people say that sales tax isn’t included in the price and that you need to file your taxes every year

          You’re hearing bullshit. There was a historical loophole by which online merchants asserted that sales taxes needed to be collected from the individuals purchasing the goods rather than the businesses selling them. That loophole has long since been closed.

          But virtually nobody paid the tax. Few people even know how or what they might owe. And even if they had, you don’t need to be a citizen to buy something online.

        • Landless2029@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          In the United States there is federal corp tax taken from documented workers and paid to the national government (federal tax) by businesses. State tax is also taken the same way and paid to the state.

          This just income tax, but there are many other forms of taxes. Vehicle tax, gas tax, food tax, clothing tax, restaurant tax, etc. These all go to the state and vary in amount depending on the state.
          This is also why our prices don’t include tax. So apple/amazon can show a single price and your state tax gets tacked on at checkout.

          So this “undocumented Immigrants paid X in taxes” is them paying taxes on good but not income. Businesses can pay these people in cash under the table and not paying taxes or benefits for them.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Income taxes are withheld from the paycheck. The filing is largely unnecessary in the modern day and most people are getting refunds. The IRS offers tax ID numbers to people who don’t have social security numbers and they generally don’t care if you’re a citizen unless you try to claim something like the earned income tax credit. They literally just want to get paid.

      • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I mean, at the base of it all, do they not buy things? If they buy stuff, they pay taxes.

  • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Its funny how much owning a successful business sound exactly like being a lazy, work-shy layabout who does nothing while living off of other people’s hard work.

  • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Posts like this are important, but unfortunately in vain, I’m afraid. Those who still don’t understand it will never understand it. I think they don’t want to. I don’t get it.

    • warbond@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I’d say it’s still important to post and talk about, not for the people who know and don’t care, but for the people who don’t know and do care.

      • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yes, I think so too. I just can’t understand why so many people aren’t able to hold those who are to blame for their misery to account. Instead, they allow themselves to be duped by their own enemies. It is incomprehensible to me how people can be so stupid.

        • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Oh yes. For the individual, very few costs can be deducted from taxes, and investments are not considered costs.

          There’s also different tax rates and subsidies available to businesses that individuals can’t access.

          But my point stands. People always get angry about large revenues which are not taxed. Changing the system so that a tax is also levied above the line is not impossible.

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    Yes, but corporations pay into the system in other ways. Take for example the time Duke Energy had a big coal ash spill into a river. They took the income resources they had and not only paid a fair fine price, cleaned up the…

    Wait. No they didn’t. They passed on all the costs to their customers. Fortunately those customers were able to use the free market and choose another provider…

    Wait. No, they can’t. Huh. That IS a freeloader.

  • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    How much was paid with employee income tax? How much was paid with VAT?

    How much did immigrants take out of the system?

    This is the most biased one sided comparison.

    • Zement@feddit.nl
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      2 months ago

      Nah Bro, it’s biased against poor and pro rich. Taxes on income are nothing the company pays, it’s paid by the employees.

      Taxes on profits and gains are circumvented by “declaring necessary investments” to set the net profit to 0.

      I know there are cases where this is legit, but I doubt, Amazon and others just steal.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        From an economic perspective it’s largely the same.

        Research and development is important for long term growth that’s why governments do their best to financially encourage it.

        But this is Lemmy. Might as well be talking to a spam sandwich when it comes to economics.

        • Zement@feddit.nl
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          2 months ago

          Well a Billionaires Super-Yavht technically generates Jobs, is good for the economy and so on… still it’s a waste of resources (= environment dies a little for nothing).

          If companies would actually “invest” in RnD as much as you imply, we would be at a vastly different technological state. Capitalism is like, infinite Solar energy? Nah, let’s distribute fake news and manipulate the voters (Started in the 70s after Carter). It’s just braindead at this point.

          Yeah nah, I think we will never discuss on one level. It’s like easy to dismiss others arguments as stupid, because “Lemmy”, while cosplaying capitalist fanboy.

    • LemmyAtEmLemmyAtEm@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Just say you care about money more than people. It’s quicker and easier to ignore you than when you sputter out some pseudointellectual nonsense.

    • FrowingFostek@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Imma go ahead and say the income tax & VAT combined don’t equal 97B.

      Additionally, imma guess immigrants took out much less than the 97B they put into the system.

      Fact check me.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        That’s not how fact checking works.

        Someone’s made a stupid text on image post incorrectly comparing things and didn’t even back that up.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Here’s the study. Robert Reich is a former Secretary of Labor known for pushing worker’s rights. He’s generally pretty credible.

          • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Funny how that person responded to everyone except for you. You being the person who provided evidence that likely proves them completely wrong.

            Mustn’t draw attention to the argument that beats mine.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Well that’s just the level of economic understanding on this website. Immigrants get everything for free but everyone else pays for society at large.

        • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Illegals pay taxes bud. I’m sorry you didn’t know that. When they buy groceries they are taxed. Everything they buy is taxed. The only thing they are getting away with is federal and state taxes but there are plenty of Americans that don’t pay their taxes either.

          Everything the tv is telling you about undocumented workers is a lie. Even the numbers. Some of your favorite brands are perpetuating the problem because they love to hire these “freeloaders” and pay them poverty wages and not tell anyone. Tyson is one of the biggest employers of illegal immigrants.

          If the Republican Party gave a shit about fixing the issue they would stop allowing businesses to hire these people.

      • Unbecredible@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        An easy example is not paying income tax. Some illegals work for cash because they’re undocumented and so pay no income tax. When that person uses public stuff like roads and local dog parks and anything that’s ultimately paid for with taxes, they’re taking benefits and not paying back into the system.

        Whether or not we might want to deport someone or otherwise punish them for this “freeloading” is a separate question, but I don’t think there’s much of an argument to say that no amount of freeloading is happening at all.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Hmmm yes, they can go for a walk in a park. But they can’t use TANF, Medicaid, SSI/SSDI, SNAP, or anything else that requires means testing. While they do get taxes withheld from their paycheck. So they are actually paying for that park.

          Yes some are on a cash only, under the table arrangement. But 100 billion dollars worth of them are not. Banks don’t require proof of citizenship, and states that aren’t busy trying to shoot themselves in the foot aren’t checking citizenship for work. So they get taxes, the immigrants get worker protections, and life goes on as normal.

        • ITGuyLevi@programming.dev
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          2 months ago

          Define “freeloading” for me. They don’t have access to big social services (TANF, SSI, etc) due to not having documentation, roads are funded through fuel taxes as far as I’m aware (so if they’re pumping gas, they’re paying for the roads), dog parks are usually paid out of local sales tax (again, only as far as I know, I live in GA and we’re a fucked up state a lot of times).

          Income tax is a big one, but not on a small scale (like municipal level)… Hell, I haven’t ever had a local income tax that I can remember.

          • Unbecredible@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            Yeah I take your meaning that the severity of the freeloading is negligible in most cases.

            I was just trying to demonstrate how an illegal immigrant could in principal be “taking” from the system for the person who asked.

    • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      So much wrong with this post. First, the US does not have a VAT. Second, why would you ascribe an employees wages to the employer? Isn’t it the employees skills that earns them a wage? Third, what do you even mean with “undocumented “ migrants taking out of the system? They are undocumented and thus don’t have access to social security/medicaid etc.

    • ArchRecord@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Undocumented immigrants can’t file income tax, because they are undocumented. However, they also can’t utilize the majority of our costly social services, because they, obviously, don’t have documentation. They can’t sign up for welfare programs, utilize police resources for fear of being deported, etc.

      Overall though, they are also human. They produce similar economic demand to Americans. They pay sales tax. Their landlord pays tax on their rent. They are also often paid less than Americans because they have no ability to enforce the law through legal means (again, for fear of being deported), but still have to buy things like food, which is taxed.

      Thus, they tend to, at a bare minimum, take roughly about what they put in, leaving a mostly neutral effect on the economy.

      Immigration is generally regarded to boost innovation overall, lead to higher education rates within the workforce, and creates higher overall economic productivity., which is an effect on the economy that isn’t just taxes in, taxes out.

      Of course, the best option we have is to grant them amnesty, because that then means they can file & pay income taxes, can more easily be statistically measured and analyzed as a group, and can engage in class solidarity through union organization, which raises working conditions and wages for all workers.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      We don’t have VAT in the US and we don’t track sales tax. This is from two sources. Immigrants that can use a tax ID number, and immigrants that cannot but still have taxes withheld from their paycheck. So the only effect is they can’t get a refund.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Holy shit you guys have sales tax? Really living in the 1800’s there.

  • emerald@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    I’d actually be willing to bet that we (the US taxpayer) paid those cooperations for the privilege of their continued existence

    • wunami@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Durrr. We need them to trickle down on some workers cause otherwise there wouldn’t be any jobs.

      • beebarfbadger@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Indeed, they could simply choose to bunker their wealth in a tax oasis and just keep taking and taking without ever giving anything back. And according to studies they do exactly that.

        Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yes, the precipitations that they do decide to shower those beneath them with are then obviously worth their weight in gold. A golden shower, if you will.

  • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
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    2 months ago

    Racism is either a symptom or a tool:

    Those who cant make sense of their situation being unsatisfactory may fall prey to it to soothe themselves.

    Those who hoard all of the worlds wealth use it to distract from that fact.

    • danc4498@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Worth noting that a lot of the people raging about immigrants don’t see themselves as racist.

      • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
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        2 months ago

        I have a quote that fits this situation well:

        When you‘re dead, you do not know you are dead. Its only painful and difficult for others. The same applies when you are stupid.

        • Zorque@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It’s not about inability to understand, mind, it’s about unwillingness to understand.

          There are plenty of people who have mental deficiencies who are well aware of that, and how much trouble they have understanding the world around them. But they at least try.

          The same can not be said for those who are perfectly capable of understanding, yet simply choose not to.

      • masquenox@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        If you apply liberal’s superficial understanding of what white supremacism actually is hard enough it’s very easy to end up in a situation where nobody could possibly be a white supremacist.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Or themselves as immigrants, for that matter.

        A German settler calling a Hispanic migrant “illegal” really says something about the legal and social zeitgeist.

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    I notice we’re comparing “taxes” in one column to “federal income taxes” in the other column. I wonder why.

    • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Ok so if “white” is a color but nobody is actually “white” does that mean that we have solved racism? Finally realized that everyone just has a slight shade of brown difference?

      WOW! I love living in the early 2000’s! Fuck you all and your flying cars you 3000’s assholes! Sure I’ll die in this millennium before we meet aliens from outer space, but at least I don’t have to purchase oxygen in plastic bags on a daily basis from Trump-Tesla, your friendly oxygen company!

  • OpenStars@discuss.online
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    2 months ago

    Trump is not a free-loader though!? And now that I’ve planted that thought… can you remind me why not exactly - asking for a friend? :-P

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        He’s not a freeloader because he pays his fair share of taxes…. Wait a minute

        He’s not a freeloader because he takes on the risks of a job creator, including any financial losses…. Crap, nope

        He’s not a freeloader because when he contracts put work he pays on time what was agreed …… can you see the pattern?

        • OpenStars@discuss.online
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          2 months ago

          img

          - “conservatives” Republicans

          img

          Oh wait my bad that’s 1 Thessalonians 5:21, oh well nobody seems to care.