Patterico's Pontifications

12/4/2016

Affirmative Wage Deduction: A Proposal to Discourage Illegal Immigration

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 4:11 pm



[I recently ran a contest to promote Liberty Classroom, a site run by libertarian Tom Woods which has 17 classes on free-market economics and history from a liberty perspective. As part of the incentives, I offered people the chance to submit a guest post. This first post is by David Barulich and proposes a solution to discourage illegal immigration. — P]

[Guest post by David Barulich]

Is it possible to encourage millions of illegal immigrants to decide to return to their native country, without having to conduct government raids targeting Hispanic communities?

Is it possible for libertarians and supporters of constitutionalism to support a strong immigration enforcement regime without being labeled as racists?

With Affirmative Wage Deduction the answer is YES!

Voters instinctively understand that it’s not right for corporations to receive reductions in their taxable income by engaging in illegal activities. We don’t allow corporations to deduct parking tickets as a business expense.

So why should we allow corporations to lower their taxable income by deducting wages paid to illegal immigrants?

By tweaking the E-Verify system already in place, President Trump may be able to use an executive order to force massive layoffs of illegal employees around the country, by disallowing billions of dollars of wage deductions that reduce taxable net incomes of thousands of businesses.

This proposal would be far more consequential and less expensive than building a wall across the Mexican border.

Under current rules, employers and employees work on an honor system. Employees complete a Form I-9 and show their employer identity documents. Employment attorneys advise their clients not to photocopy these documents. Employers have only to write in the document name, issuing authority, document number, and expiration date. The employer has no incentive to verify the authenticity of these documents. And even if the employer knows they are fake, he suffers no immediate penalty for hiring the employee.

My proposal is Affirmative Wage Deduction. An employer would have to utilize the online E-Verify system to receive an authentication code for each employee. The employer could reduce his taxable income only by deducting the wages of those employees who were issued an authentication code through the E-Verify system. This authentication must be inserted on W-2s and 1099s in order for these labor expenses to qualify as a legal reduction for the calculation of taxable net income.

In most circumstances, the Affirmative Wage Deduction policy would make hiring an illegal immigrant more expensive than hiring a legal worker, and would encourage mass layoffs of illegal workers in thousands of companies across the U.S.

I have done the math behind the Affirmative Wage Deduction, and you can read that on this page if you are interested. The bottom line is that employers would be strongly financially encouraged to employ only legal workers.

Some might argue that the government is inefficient, and that relying on government to maintain an accurate database of people eligible to work is going to harm many people who are legally entitled to work. That’s why, under my plan, there would be a one-year phase-in period, to give people who don’t have their documents together time to get things in order . . . and to give the government time to make sure the database is accurate and complete.

This proposal would severely affect the millions of illegal immigrats who are hired by building contractors, meat packing plants, garment manufacturers, etc. who turn a blind eye to the immigration status of their workforce.

So what could progressives possibly say to oppose Affirmative Wage Deduction?

It raises taxes collected from corporations.

It doesn’t let corporations profit from engaging in illegal hiring practices.

It doesn’t discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.

It doesn’t require an army of ICE Agents to roam around Latino neighborhoods and target a subset of our population for deportation.

This proposal would do a lot, not just to discourage people from entering the country illegally, but also to discourage illegal immigrants already here from remaining in our country. I hope President Trump considers it.

–David Barulich
davidbarulich@hotmail.com

84 Responses to “Affirmative Wage Deduction: A Proposal to Discourage Illegal Immigration”

  1. Bravo!

    But this will require a good faith effort by the bureaucracy to provide a functional e-verify system, and there are many who would undermine such an effort. What’s to prevent a GS-14 in Cincinnati, say the lady with an alleged degree in Latino-Studies from a previous post, from sending out a phony authentication code to the first one million requests in 2017. The IRS will query the Cincinnati employee database for all one million deductions, and each query will come back indicating it was issued by an appropriate authority. And so the deduction will be accepted. Four years hence, when some think tank finally gets a response to a FOIA request for data, and notes that the same authentication code was issued to every employers’ request in California in 2017, who will be held responsible? The bureaucrat will take the 5th, Paul Ryan will wring his hands in frustration, and life will go on, we will continue to lead a peaceful life. And our bureaucrat will have learned to issue different codes for each request to thwart similar analyses in the future.

    BobStewartatHome (c24491)

  2. Libertarians would like this? Sane conservatives would like this? Not getting hired for a job unless the government approves your hiring?

    nk (dbc370)

  3. Where’s Gabriel? This is The Six Lane Highway To Serfdom.

    nk (dbc370)

  4. @nk:Where’s Gabriel? This is The Six Lane Highway To Serfdom.

    Right here, and no, it’s not. We have the right to control our borders.

    The current laws are fake. E-Verify does not throw one illegal out of work, nor prevent one from being hired: on the contrary it allows for legal employment of illegal aliens regardless of the outcome of the E-Verify process.

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  5. You would have to get an E-Verify number too, Gabriel, every time you applied for a job. And every other person you know.

    nk (dbc370)

  6. So why should we allow corporations to lower their taxable income by deducting wages paid to illegal immigrants?

    Because it’s a real business expense.

    And nobody is interested in cracking down like this. And no, it would not chase people out of the country, but would encourage hiring people as independent contractors and otehr forms of tax avoidance.

    I can also see a situation where a restaurant hires one definite American citizen, pays him for himself as well as three or four other people, treats him as a business, and gives him a 1099 instead of a W-2 form. This poor person would be the one that would not get to deduct the wages he paid and be charged taxes for money he never kept. (in a later iteration, he would get a W-2 form, get paid a salary and not per hour, pay all the taxes on all the income, pay his co-workers completely under the table, and be in a higher tax bracket.)

    Sammy Finkelman (eb0eea)

  7. @nk:You would have to get an E-Verify number too, Gabriel, every time you applied for a job. And every other person you know.

    Yep. Can put it in the file with all the other numbers.

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  8. How willing is New Mexico to be the Wall demo (of Romney can grovel, so can la naca gorda)? https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexico-budget-crisis-hits-defendants-181827101.html

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  9. 6: this is the real reason behind outraeous college FB/BB head coaching salaries…some of those $ go to recruits, parents, street agents etc.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  10. The person being paid the wages doesn’t necessarily have to be the person doing the work.

    Sammy Finkelman (eb0eea)

  11. While some people would not want to have a higher reported income than they actually made, when they are trying too qualify for lower health insrance premiums maybe or higher tuition aid, others would like it because maybe they could qualify for a higher mortgage that way.

    Sammy Finkelman (eb0eea)

  12. I do not want to seem close-minded. I can see the need for a totalitarian state under exigent circumstances when the survival of The State is at stake. Such as the war with Eurasia, for example. But not to keep illegals from “stealing American jobs”. We can do that better with border security and rational detention and deportation of illegals. Maybe even with an E-Verify type requirement at Wells Fargo for money wired to Mexico.

    nk (dbc370)

  13. I am reminded of an in law of my ex-wife who used to “rent” his social security # to 2 or 3 of his illegal alien tenants (poor aunt of my ex had to put up with several roomates and the newest direct sales schemes because dude didn’t want a 9 to 5) for work purposes. He would keep their tax refund as the fee.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  14. @nk:We can do that better with border security and rational detention and deportation of illegals.

    Excellent. Make that case and get the laws changed so that no one requires a work authorization. If your case is convincing I’ll support.

    But the fact is we have fake laws that are designed to be unenforceable.

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  15. 13. urbanleftbehind (847a06) — 12/4/2016 @ 5:49 pm

    I am reminded of an in law of my ex-wife who used to “rent” his social security #

    This system is outlined in Joe Haldeman’s “The Forever War.”

    Sammy Finkelman (eb0eea)

  16. If the fee was the tax refund, he probably filled out the W-4 form as well, to make sure a lot was withheld.

    Sammy Finkelman (eb0eea)

  17. Perhaps, but one way to crack down is to get invited to the parties and hear a lot of co-workers get called by totally different names. Sign happy up for that since he fetishists abuelitas, pinatas, and pina coladas.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  18. A. Half the people issuing the I-9 numbers would be on the take from the employers, the rights groups and the illegals. Fortunes would be made. See DMV scandals in California.
    B. In the unlikely event I’m wrong about A half the restaurants and most of the meat and vegetable prosessors would go out of business. Good luck getting young Anglos and African Americans to fill all those slots.

    L Follmer Pass (5a4596)

  19. 18A. We have that in legal immigration and with less than explicit prices. People smile and frown depending on which “estado” the parents of the newest hire at a local INS office hail from. To B, with regard to blacks it might vary by region and of course upbringing, but whites will either encourage the modern day Okies (Rusties and Coalies) to live as modern day Jack Tripper and Larry, or will use their early teen kids and their kid’s buddies to fill vacancies.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  20. Well of course this proposal can and will be called racist! That’s because everything the Left does not like is defined as racist.

    Trying to be reasonable with the categorically unreasoned is a futile quest.

    Arizona CJ (191c8a)

  21. David Barulich:Under current rules, employers and employees work on an honor system. Employees complete a Form I-9 and show their employer identity documents. Employment attorneys advise their clients not to photocopy these documents. Employers have only to write in the document name, issuing authority, document number, and expiration date. The employer has no incentive to verify the authenticity of these documents. And even if the employer knows they are fake, he suffers no immediate penalty for hiring the employee.

    It’s actually worse than you state here. For an employer to question documents, or require other documents than those offered, is called “document abuse” and it is national origin discrimination under Title VII. But if an employer accepts documents at face value and the employee turns out to be illegal, the employer cannot be liable for hiring the illegal.

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  22. This is the same government that required me to provide them with my entire life history, as well as my wife’s, and then let the Chinese copy it.

    This is the same government that had me on a travel watch list for 3 years because someone else with my same first and last name pissed them off.

    I think you are WAY too trusting.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  23. Now, if there was a 10-year salary penalty for them disallowing a valid worker from working, then I might reconsider. But you know that there won’t be any form of redress.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  24. “The person being hired to do the work, doesn’t necessarily have to be the person doing the work.”

    That only works if the person lending out his social security number is not also working. Otherwise, a rationally designed system would be checking for duplicate filings under the same SSN to catch fraudulent use. Yes, it is possible that one person could be working 2 or 3 different jobs, but they better be within a 60 mile radius of his home, and hours should not exceed 70/week otherwise, a beeper should be going off suggesting that maybe there is fraud going on.

    Of course, you could posit that the government is too stupid and unwilling to do this basic kind of filtering, but so what? What is really lost by trying it out?

    And I don’t understand the claim that the government is giving you permission to work. Not at all. You could be a sole proprietor who is illegal hiring your family to work in exchange for food and lodging, and not worry about the E-Verify system and claiming tax deductions. Or you could be a nanny or gardener getting paid with after tax dollars by non-business owners who cannot claim a wage deduction. You could still make a living under the radar screen of the E-Verify system. But we have over 12 million illegals working here because they are working out in the open with companies who claim their wages as a tax-deductible expense!

    It seems like this proposal could be easily expanded to include 1099 as well as W-2 employees. I like it.

    Why would Libertarians and Constitutionalist be happy with the current state of affairs that rewards law-breaking with tax deductions? I just don’t understand that sentiment, at all. Should speeding tickets and “entertainment” expenses paying for topless lap dancers should also be included as legitimate business expenses.

    Because if you really oppose this measure, that seems to be what you are implying.

    El Gipper (67ea6a)

  25. I have a better idea. We could embed a computer chip under the skin of the person’s right hand or forehead, with that person’s personal ID number, tax information, medical information, employment history, legal history, bank and credit data, etc. If you don’t have that chip, you can’t get hired for any job. A second use for the chip would be to scan it at all stores for purchasing all your consumer goods. No chip, no sale. That would really crack down on illegal activities.

    What could go wrong? Other than the eternal damnation of your soul?

    John Hitchcock (ebca4a)

  26. “What could go wrong? Other than the eternal damnation of your soul?”

    All American wage earners are responsible for paying income taxes so our souls are already condemned to eternal damnation. If you want to wage jihad against the 16th amendment, then God’s Speed. But don’t tar everyone else with this extremist rant when they try to work within the system as it is.

    You are free to work in the cash economy to avoid paying income taxes if you believe that will save your soul. In fact, this proposal doesn’t prohibit an employer from hiring an illegal worker. He just cannot take a tax deduction for indulging in that practice.

    So this chicken-little scaremongering is a bit over-wrought, at best.

    El Gipper (67ea6a)

  27. Undocumented immigrants are here because businesses wanted and/or needed them and national policy was to look the other way and not enforce immigration laws. If we’re going to start enforcing the laws then the only fair thing is to amnesty the ones our government allowed in.

    Retroactive enforcement is Ex Post Facto law and banned by the constitution for obvious reasons.

    Kevin Eddy (6078e4)

  28. Gipper,
    A swing and a miss.

    John Hitchcock (ebca4a)

  29. Kevin Eddy,
    They’re called ILLEGAL immigrants for a reason. That reason is it’s illegal for them to enter the way they entered. Nothing ex post facto about it.

    John Hitchcock (ebca4a)

  30. So the IRS will become the enforcement agency?
    This is the same organization that insists that you provide copies of returns in the event of an audit. As in copies of the returns they already have, because the local office does not have access to them.
    The IRS is already behaving punitively towards the serfs based on politics, so, hey, lets double the bloated beast, what could go wrong

    Seriously though, it seems like a single fraudulent or false signal e-verify issue could bankrupt small businesses before the problem can be straightened out, but maybe that won’t be a thing since the schemers and forgers seem to catch up quicker than the government can stay ahead.

    steveg (5508fb)

  31. I agree with nk on the question of liberty.
    Do we all now require a permission from the government to have a paying job?

    First get all the sanctuary cities and campuses back in line – they take federal dollars, so they get to be ruled. Then deport all the felons here illegally. Then shed the country of the multiple and chronic misdemeanor offenders. They are dangerous and/or cost too much.

    Fix the IRS. Illegal aliens can get a taxpayer ID number and get a refund for any number of dependents. All they have to do is make up 5-6 names and ages. The IRS will even mail the check to Mexico. Supposedly it is nearly a billion a year in fraud.

    Then we can talk about how I need to get permission to work… I’ll say no.

    steveg (5508fb)

  32. 23. Screw a 10 year salary penalty…I prefer the instant “redress” of my docs posted and readable from the barrel of a long rifle. But yes, I’m part of the common Latino name cohort that has to schedule a longer layover when changing flights from overseas to be in the little room, so I get you on that.

    urbanleftbehind (3adcd2)

  33. What Gabriel @12/4/2016 @ 7:21 pm said. Does this David Barulich even know the current state of employment law?

    The employer has no incentive to verify the authenticity of these documents.

    You’e damned right that I, as an employer, have no incentive to verify the authenticity of the documents.

    https://www.justia.com/employment/immigration/

    Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

    Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), an employer must verify the identity and employment eligibility of all employees who are hired after 1986 by completing an Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9) and reviewing documents that show the employee’s identity and employment authorization. Originally, IRCA was enforced by the Department of Justice, but in 2002, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was given the responsibility of IRCA enforcement.

    Form I-9 starts with a section on basic biographical information, including certification of citizenship, permanent resident status, or authorization to work. The following section requires the employer to verify and attest under penalty of perjury that an employee presented specified documents to prove identity and the right to work, such as a passport and combinations of other documents.
    Immigration Discrimination

    Although they must verify authorization to work by asking for documents, employers are not permitted to discriminate on the basis of citizenship, immigration status, or national origin with respect to hiring, firing, recruitment, or referral. An employer that asks a job applicant if he or she is a United States citizen or asks any questions about immigration status before making an employment offer may raise the inference that the employer is discriminating on the basis of immigration status. Employers are also prohibited from discriminating against refugees, individuals granted asylum, individuals with temporary visas, or undocumented workers.

    All employers must comply with the requirements related to the I-9 form and work authorization verification. IRCA’s anti-discrimination provisions apply to smaller employers than the federal employment discrimination laws enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission do. For example, IRCA’s national origin discrimination provisions apply to employers with between four and 14 employees, even though they would not be covered by Title VII’s prohibition on national origin discrimination. The citizenship discrimination provision applies to employers that have at least four employees.

    Similarly, IRCA prohibits employers from rejecting valid documents or asking for additional documents beyond what is required for verification. An employer cannot only require those individuals believed to be “foreign” to verify employment eligibility or ask them for extra documents. An employee has the right to choose which of the allowed documents to show for employment eligibility verification. If a document appears genuine on its face and belongs to the individual employee, an employer must accept it.

    A prospective employer’s failure to accept the documents you submitted or ask for additional documents may give rise to an immigration discrimination claim. For example, if an employer asks you to submit a green card before hiring you, you may have an immigration discrimination claim…

    Quit passing the buck to employer. Most employers do not want to employ illegal aliens. The fact that we comply the law by filling out all the paperwork and asking for the employees documentation shows that. No employer who does that can get away with paying less than the legal minimum wage. There’s no advantage to me to hiring illegal aliens. I would prefer to hire Americans, but that in itself would constitute illegal discrimination under the IRCA as I must hire anyone legally capable of accepting employment in this country regardless of citizenship status.

    I don’t have sovereign immunity. I can’t ask about anyone’s citizenship or immigration status. I must accept whatever documents the prospective employee chooses to give me. I can not ask for additional documents beyond the minimum required by law to prove employment eligibility. I can not reject the documents and ask for different documents. I have not discretion in the matter. I must do exactly what the law requires and only what the law requires. I can only “enforce” immigration law by a) asking for the prospective employee’s documents and accepting each one if they individually appear, on its face, to be valid.

    Capisce? It’s illegal for me to go beyond that and attempt to verify the authenticity of those document if it appears, on its face, to be valid.

    What part of “on its face” does David Barulich not understand? The DoJ can and does go after “overzealous” employers who do exactly what he suggest and go beyond what the law permits and attempt to verify a document that, on its face, appears valid. Has David Barulich no clue how many lawsuits I’d be facing if I attempted to verify the authenticity of a document that appears genuine on its face? All any decent attorney would have to prove is that there were times I accepted documents that appeared genuine without attempting to verify the authenticity of those documents and BOOM, I have to pay up. And do you check the authenticity of a Social Security Card? To you imagine I can just call the SSA and give them the name and SSN and they’ll just tell me over the phone? Think Again (more on this later).

    Again, you’re damned right I have no incentive to verify the authenticity of the documents a prospective employee gives me. That’s the understatement of the year given that I can be sued not only by the employee but by the feds if I do so.

    If they’re obviously not valid then I suppose I can reject them but I’ve never been in that situation. Most fraudulent documents are in fact authentic to a certain degree due to the fact government workers make money on the the side selling blanks to forgers.

    If you really want to do something about this then you need to stop the Social Security Administration (SSA) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from aiding and abetting identity theft. Both agencies know who is filing (or not filing) tax returns under stolen SSNs. But they refuse to share the information with law enforcement or the victims of these crimes because, frankly, they’re on the side of the illegal alien. Of course, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the IRS sees the American citizen as its natural enemy.

    Putting the responsibility for being the front-line in immigration law enforcement on the employer is a cop-out, and a none-too-well thought out one at that. I’m not saying the chamber of commerce crony capitalists haven’t behaved exactly as described. But to get their way they’ve put small employers in an impossible legal position.

    So let’s put the law enforcement responsibility where it belongs. Back on law enforcement. And I’m including the SSA and IRS in that. If and when Trump decides to go after sanctuary cities and states that refuse to abide by federal immigration law and provide safe haven to illegal aliens, he can start by going after the low hanging fruit. He can bring those viper’s nests at the SSA and IRS to heel and make them abide by immigration law and stop providing safe haven to illegal aliens.

    This extends far beyond merely hiding their immigration status from law enforcement. Every time an illegal alien signs an I-9 form attesting that they can legally accept employment when they can not, they are committing perjury under the Treasury Code, a five year felony. When they present false documents to support their false claim they are committing document fraud, an entirely separate five year felony. There is almost no illegal alien that, after entering this country illegally, has not gone on to commit a string of crimes in order to remain here illegally.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  34. Undocumented immigrants are here because businesses wanted and/or needed them and national policy was to look the other way and not enforce immigration laws. If we’re going to start enforcing the laws then the only fair thing is to amnesty the ones our government allowed in.

    Retroactive enforcement is Ex Post Facto law and banned by the constitution for obvious reasons.

    Kevin Eddy (6078e4) — 12/4/2016 @ 10:45 pm

    I know it’s only Monday but I nominate this for the “Genius Comment of the Week” award as we are not likely to see anything close to this farrago of legal and constitutional concepts.

    – There is no such thing as “retroactive law enforcement.” If someone commits a crime they can be prosecuted as long as the statute of limitations has not run out.

    – The above does not apply to an illegal alien because having entered the country illegally their continued presence in this country is illegal. It is an ongoing crime and can only be remedied when the illegal alien puts an end to his/her illegal status by leaving the country.

    – The Constitution prohibits Congress from passing an ex post facto law. That is, a law that retroactively criminalizes behavior. It has nothing to do with enforcing existing law even years after the original crime.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  35. Perhaps, Kevin Eddy, you should watch a few episodes of “Cold Case Files” to better understand how silly your theory that “retroactive law enforcement” is somehow unconstitutional happens to be.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  36. Steve’s comments on the IRS and SSA put this issue in a very different light. The good news is that Trump could do something about this, but he’s going to have to clean out a couple of very corrupt agencies. I hadn’t realized employers had such restrictions, but the behavior of the SSA and IRS is well known. The legal geniuses we elect to Congress would seem to be a logical focal point for additional action since it is the letter of the law that supports the status quo. Of course, they have had the opportunity to do something about this since 2010…

    BobStewartatHome (c24491)

  37. Steve57 should take a chill pill.

    The employer does not have to do any verification of legal documents. As I read this Affirmative Wage Deduction proposal by David Barulich, that responsibility is turned over to the E-Verify System, which is run by Homeland Security (ICE), not the IRS.

    Then the only thing Steve57 has to worry about is whether or not any employees he’s paying wages too have been authenticated by the US Govt. Then Steve57 makes a decision about whether it is worthwhile to continue paying wages (or 1099 Vendor) when he won’t be able to deduct their wages as an expense.

    Voila!

    What’s great about this proposal is that the employer is completely passive to its operation. His only role is based on financial incentives. Employer has no legal enforcement responsibilities whatsoever. I challenge Steve to re-read this proposal and demonstrate if I have erred in my interpretation.

    El Gipper (67ea6a)

  38. employers are not permitted to discriminate on the basis of citizenship, immigration status, or national origin with respect to hiring, firing, recruitment, or referral. An employer that asks a job applicant if he or she is a United States citizen or asks any questions about immigration status before making an employment offer [may be in violation of law]

    Thatsa right. An employer is supposed to inquire as to Social Security cards or the right to work only after making a final decision, subject to the would-be employee turning it down.

    That may not be a rational way for a business to proceed.

    BUT IT’S THE LAW

    I don’t see any reason why anyone who insists the law should always be enforced should have any trouble with this.

    IT’S THE LAW

    The only thing is, I think actually they can ask before a final hiring decision is made – the government sometimes does – if they ask everybody at the same point in the application process to provide those documents, and the results are not looked at prior to making a hiring decision, and if something is wrong, like the wrong name on them, the employee gets a chance to supply the correct documents.

    Sammy Finkelman (eb0eea)

  39. Here’s the way I think about this Affirmative Wage Deduction proposal. Think of it as a tariff on foreign illegal workers.

    In order to avoid this tariff, you merely have to demonstrate that you are a domestic legal worker (wage employee or 1099 vendor). When you do that, then the employer gets to deduct your wages and reap a tax benefit.

    This is not different than the tax code having differing rules for depreciation of equipment, treatment of exports, imports, etc. You might not agree with the tax code, but there is nothing sinister in the sense of creating a need for PERMISSION TO WORK.

    I think that this is the best analogy for Mr. Barulich’s proposal.

    El Gipper (67ea6a)

  40. An employer cannot only require those individuals believed to be “foreign” to verify employment eligibility or ask them for extra documents.

    That sentence could sound a bit unclear. What that means is that no one can be asked to provide any proof that everyone else is not asked for. No relying on accents or the lack of accent as a shortcut.

    Everyone must be asked or not asked for the same documents that anyone else in a similar legal situation would be asked for, regardless of perceived probability.

    It probably would be OK to scrutinize some documents more closely, provided they weren’t held for a longer period of time than anyone else’s, but if anyone is turned down for employment because of suspicious documents, your suspicions had better be right, and you can’t ask for corroboration to settle the matter. If someone doesn’t look like his or her picture, say, you’d better be right it’s not that person. The employer must decide on the spot.

    Sammy Finkelman (eb0eea)

  41. This is actually more constitutional than outright prohibition, but David Barulich doesn’t seem to be proposing repealing the 1986 law, which is probably unconstitutional.

    Sammy Finkelman (eb0eea)

  42. American citizen here. I had to go through e-Verify when I got my current job. It was much less intrusive than the paperwork for my Q clearance . Just as I had to show my Social Security card, this seems fine to me. It is not the first step on the road to fascism.

    Jim Breed (fc98c8)

  43. @Jim Breed: had to go through e-Verify when I got my current job. It was much less intrusive than the paperwork for my Q clearance .

    Know what would have happened to you if E-Verify couldn’t find evidence of your eligibility to work?

    Nothing.

    Know what would have happened to you if you had refused requests for supplemental information?

    Nothing.

    That’s what the law that establishes E-Verify says.

    Of course it’s not intrusive. It is designed to do nothing.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  44. I really appreciate all the comments. Thanks for making the effort to critique the proposal.

    The main fear I’m hearing about is the notion of a Permission to Work. That fear is unfounded. El Gipper’s characterization of this proposal as a tariff on illegal immigrant labor is the best way to think about Affirmative Wage Deduction (AWD). AWD creates a preferential tax treatment for legal employees and vendors. That’s it.

    The validity of identity documents is entirely a matter between the Social Security Office and Homeland Security or your own state’s DMV. The employer’s only responsibility is to enter the document information into E-Verify to let that system do the work.

    There will be a transition period where a percentage of the legal workers discover that they cannot get an authentication number. Hopefully, that is a small number, and some discretion should be allowed for the Executive Branch to properly staff up so discrepancies can be corrected. But in order for us to avoid discrimination against Hispanics and others with foreign accents who are legal workers, you must compel everyone to participate in the authentication process. That makes it bullet proof from attacks by the ACLU.

    So a fair attack on AWD is that it is inconvenient for millions of workers who will have to straighten out their identity documents. But I think that is a race-neutral enforcement mechanism that chokes off the demand side of illegal immigration is the worth this inconvenience. Those in the country illegally quietly slink away when they are fired from their jobs because they are now not a cost-effective alternative to legal workers. They won’t have to be rounded up by a police state. They will exit on their own. The USA will be a far less attractive jobs magnet for those considering jumping over the border fence.

    Of course, a generous welfare state supporting these illegals could stem the exit, but then that would be on the taxpayers of those states wishing to offer those benefits. Coupled with federal regulations requiring an E-Verify authentication for federally-funded welfare benefits would be the final nail in that coffin. All that would remain would be for recalcitrant states willing to offer state-funded programs to aid illegals, but that is the downside of federalism. Each state has a choice.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  45. @DAvid Barulich:So a fair attack on AWD

    AWD or anything like it will never get off the ground. If the government had any interest whatever preventing illegals from working here, E-Verify would allow the screening of applicants, or at least mandate the firing of workers without authorization who don’t respond to requests to rectify their documents.

    Why would the government roll out an expensive sham program, lying about what that program does, if they had any intention of following through on any of it?

    If E-Verify were real it would be sufficient. No one would be able to work without straightening out their documents. Why add AWD on top of a fake system, that would just make AWD fake as well.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  46. Gabriel,

    You talk about the government as if we are powerless to do anything about it. If you believe that, then I don’t know why you are wasting your time with comments about government policy in this forum.

    I’m taking Trump at his word. He made illegal immigration the centerpiece of his campaign. AWD should appeal to him as something that he could take unilateral action, without Congressional consent or new legislation. It would cost a lot less than a wall, and it would be far more effective, and it won’t be targeted by race, ethnicity, or foreign accents.

    E-Verify has potential. It just has not been fully realized because the Obama Administration had no interest in stemming illegal immigration to any significant degree for the past 8 years. The Chasis is in place. All we need is the Trump Administration to assemble the engine and body to make it run.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  47. @David:You talk about the government as if we are powerless to do anything about it.

    Not at all what I am saying. I’m saying that the government, at great expense, created a fake program which could easily be converted into a real one, if the aim of the program were at all what it is claimed to be.

    You claim you have a simple solution, but the fact is the government has a far, far simpler one it could have used at any time.

    When our elected officials gang up on us like this, to lie about our laws do, the fix is not going to be simple, and it’s not going to be something Trump can do without the cooperation of the elements of government that are working so hard to obstruct and obfuscate the simple solution they have now.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  48. Gabriel,

    Just think for a moment about your claim that it would be far simpler for the government could mandate the firing of workers who don’t pass E-Verify. That would be a PERMISSION TO WORK program. You would be delegating enforcement responsibility to employers and holding employers accountable for punishment. That policy would encourage racial and ethnic discrimination by employers seeking to limit their legal exposure.

    And how would you know if an employer simply hired someone and simply refused to run their documents through the E-Verify system, unless you were tracking the SSN of all employees with the E-Verify database? So there is no way for your approach to effectively avoid the requirement that all employees and vendors, legal and illegal, participate in the E-Verify system. Without global participation by the entire workforce, you are forced to rely on targeted raids by ICE.

    AWD uses a velvet glove, an invisible hand, a gentle approach based on financial incentives for employers to comply with the law instead of needing clumsy, heavy-handed, and discriminatory police powers.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  49. In the second paragraph above, I meant to write that Gabriel’s proposal could only work if the IRS and Homeland Security compared databases to determine if an employer hired an illegal worker that failed an E-Verify check. So Gabriel would not save any of the work effort that AWD requires, but he forces employers to act as ICE agents.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  50. @David Barulich:Just think for a moment about your claim that it would be far simpler for the government could mandate the firing of workers who don’t pass E-Verify.

    That’s not the only thing I said. I said they could also allow it to screen new hires.

    That would be a PERMISSION TO WORK program. You would be delegating enforcement responsibility to employers and holding employers accountable for punishment. That policy would encourage racial and ethnic discrimination by employers seeking to limit their legal exposure.

    And right here we have the dishonesty…. What on earth do you think “work authorization” MEANS? Is it racist to not let illegals work? Is it totalitarian to check on them so they don;t get hired and get fired if they do? If so, why do you want to do it through AWD and not E-Verify, the program that is sold as doing the very thing you claim you want AWD to do?

    incentives for employers to comply with the law

    Employers who hire illegals through E-Verify, and retain them, ARE complying with the law. That is my whole point. The law is fake.

    he forces employers to act as ICE agents.

    That’s what you claimed you wanted: employers complying with the law.

    What kind of law says you have to accept documents at face value, and no consequences will happen to you if you do, but you will get sued under Title VII if you don’t?

    What kind of “verification” system allows you the legal right to retain the employee regardless of the outcome?

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  51. Without global participation by the entire workforce, you are forced to rely on targeted raids by ICE.

    Ah, the usual line: if we can’t stop 100% of illegals there is no point in trying.

    The picture is getting a lot clearer. It seems that you want to tax employed illegals, not actually see them leave.

    Because if you actually wanted to see them leave, then a real E-Verify system, that didn’t let you hire anyone not authorized to work, would by far be the simplest way. Give people the one year to get their documents in order, sure.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  52. Gabriel,

    AWD would utilize the existing E-Verify platform, and upgrade it with a link to the IRS for purposes of issuing authentication codes.

    NO, I AM NOT REQUIRING EMPLOYERS TO COMPLY WITH EXISTING LAW. That is the whole point of AWD. They simply forgo a tax break if they choose to hire illegals.

    I wrote several times, as have others, that AWD would not stop 100% of illegals from working. So why are you inventing this “Ah, the usual line: if we can’t stop 100% of illegals there is no point in trying.”

    If employers are willing to forgo tax breaks or simply work in the underground cash economy, then then AWD does nothing to stop that. In fact, nannies, gardeners, handymen, and others hired by homeowners who cannot take tax deductions by paying for home services, would not be caught in the AWD dragnet.

    AWD would not tax employed illegals!!! It would cause employers to fire most of them so the government would cease collecting tax revenues from fired illegal workers. AWD causes collection of LESS tax revenues, not more. And yet you write “It seems that you want to tax employed illegals, not actually see them leave.”

    An E-Verify System cannot stop an employer from hiring someone. Only a police power notified by E-Verify could thwart a determined employer’s attempt at hiring low-priced illegal labor. And the only way a police power would know that you hired someone rejected by E-Verify would be if the IRS and Homeland Security collated their databases to compare rejections with a list of all SSNs sent in by employers for W-2s and 1099s. So your proposal has not substantive difference from mine in its operation, except that I don’t have to rely on ICE raids on targeted employers as your proposal would.

    So far I’m taking your comments at face value as an honest oversight about what AWD says and what I’ve written. If you continue with these unsubstantiated rants, then I can only conclude that you’re being argumentative or you just refuse to read and understand.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  53. El Gipper (67ea6a) — 12/5/2016 @ 8:27 am, uhh, hello! Are you being deliberately obtuse? We don’t need to have E-Verify, let alone assign it any new functions.

    What we need is for the law enforcement agencies to do their jobs. If the IRS actually enforced the Treasury Code half as enthusiastically as the DoJ enforces the IRCA of 1986 against “overzealous” employers who make the the tiniest misstep to ensure they don’t employ illegal aliens our illegal immigration problem would be over tomorrow. Every illegal alien who fills out an I9 form claiming eligibility to work in this country, and provides fake documentation to prove it, has committed two federal felonies each punishable by five years in prison. And they need to be in prison because identity thef, including partial identity theft, is not a victimless crime.

    Just a few prosecutions and millions of illegal aliens would be heading for the exits.

    I don’t see any reason to come up with work arounds to make up for the fact that we have rogue agencies that capriciously enforce the law against unpersons like conservatives and not against favored groups like illegal aliens. These rogue agencies by refusing to enforce the law effectively provide a bureaucratic amnesty to identity thieves as long as they’re illegals. I’m not in the mood to give them a pass by painting over rust and adding another layer to employment law with this E-Verify/work authorization number/AWD. It just another way of not holding rogue agencies accountable for refusing to do their jobs. In fact, by making the IRS the enforcers of this Affirmative Wage Deduction we would be effectively rewarding the IRS for failing to enforce existing law by giving them new laws to enforce instead. Anybody who knows how bureaucracies work knows that this will lead to requests for more personnel and larger budgets.

    After all, we’ve just expanded the scope of their responsibilies? To reward them for their past irresponsibility. This is how you make things worse.

    The rogue agency problem is worse than the illegal immigration. If you fix the rogue agency problem you have fixed them both.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  54. I don’t know if any of you are aware of the procedures an employer must follow if the employer receives a mismatch letter from the SSA.

    https://www.ssa.gov/employer/ICEinsert.pdf

    …Q: What should I do?

    A: You should take reasonable steps to resolve the mismatch, and apply these reasonable steps uniformly to all employees listed in the enclosed SSA letter. It is possible that a mismatch was the result of a clerical error on the part of the employee, the employer, or the government.

    You should:

    1) Promptly (no later than 30 days) check your records to ensure that the
    mismatch was not the result of an error on your part;

    2) If this does not resolve the problem, ask your employee to confirm the accuracy of your records;

    3) If necessary, ask the employee to resolve the issue with SSA;

    4) If you were able to successfully resolve the mismatch, make sure you have followed all of the instructions in the enclosed SSA letter. You should also verify that the correction has been made by using the Social Security Number Verification System (SSNVS) administered by SSA, and retain a record of the date and time of your verification. SSNVS can be accessed through
    http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/ssnv.htm or by telephone at 1-800-772-
    6270; and

    5) If none of the foregoing measures resolves the matter within 90 days of receipt of this letter, you should complete, within three days, a new I-9 Form as if the employee in question were newly hired, except that no document may be used to verify the employee’s authorization for work that uses the questionable Social Security number and no document may be used to verify the employee’s identity that does not have a photograph of the employee.

    If you cannot confirm that the employee is authorized to work (by following the above procedures), you risk liability for violating the law by knowingly continuing to employ unauthorized persons.

    Note who is not in legal jeopardy here. The illegal alien who committed perjury, document fraud, and identity theft. I’ve never received such a letter, but I know employers who have. The illegal alien will be gone between steps 2 and 3. Then they’ll be looking for work with a new set of fraudulent documents.

    Many illegal aliens are very sloppy about this. I know employers who have let people go, as in terminated their employment, when they wanted to go home to the “old country” to visit family. But they agreed to rehire them if they had an opening as they were good workers. So after a couple of months away the old employee comes back to get rehired. So they go through the paperwork process and…

    the old employee has a different SSN now.

    But why shouldn’t be sloppy? They commit multiple felonies each time they go through the hiring process and use different sets of fraudulent documents. With complete impunity. That’s why Meg Whitman, GOP candidate for Kali governor back in 2010 if you don’t recall, could get blindsided by Gloria Allred and her former maid, who claimed Whitman knew the maid was an illegal alien but employed her anyway.

    Leaving Whitman’s employment practices aside as they are irrelevant to the discussion, what does an illegal alien have to do to get arrested, charged and convicted for committing perjury and document fraud? In the shadows my @$$, this illegal alien is on TV admitting she’s in this country illegally, lied on an I9 form, provided false documents, was caught and Whitman eventually fired her. This illegal alien maid went on national TV and made the prosecutors case against her, and this maid has absolutely no fear because as far as the DoJ, IRS, and SSA are concerned they’re on her side no matter how many American lives she ruins stealing SSNs.

    There need to be criminal penalties for bureaucrats who aid and abet these crimes and fail to enforce existing law. Not new layers of bureaucracy.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  55. What Steve said:

    There need to be criminal penalties for bureaucrats who aid and abet these crimes and fail to enforce existing law. Not new layers of bureaucracy.

    BobStewartatHome (822f64)

  56. Steve57,

    Thank you for eloquently making the case for Affirmative Wage Deduction! You enumerated the reasons why using police powers to enforce immigration laws have been fruitless. You wail about how laws should be enforced, but then you simply throw up your hands and criticize me for avoiding the weak under-belly of federal immigration enforcement by using the tax code and the IRS as a substitute for the ineffectual ICE or SSN.

    You quote all these laws that haven’t work to date, and you don’t ask why they haven’t been working. All you do is continuing yelling at same people who have been custodians of this corrupt system. That’s why I want to introduce a new player into the game — the IRS. The IRS loves to ensure businesses are paying the greatest amount of taxes possible so we can rely upon them to ensure that business owners aren’t improperly deducting wages of illegal immigrants more than we could rely upon ICE to enforce the existing laws on the books.

    AWD avoids all of the crap that ticks you off so much. Instead of waging a full frontal assault to assuage your moral sensibilities about how those illegal-immigrant sympathizers ignoring existing laws, I choose the indirect, but much more effective route of relying upon GREED!

    Yes, appealing to the GREED of American business owners’ desire to lower their taxes and maximize net income is exactly the right way to address the immigration woes of our nation. Pitting the greed of business owners against the greed of illegal immigrant job seekers is the best way to fight this battle.

    Or you can continue whining about the terrible lack of enforcement of existing laws on the books like a sore loser.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  57. @David Barulich: lack of enforcement of existing laws

    Let’s try this one more time David:

    Existing laws allow employers to legally hire illegals.

    Until you acknowledge and address that, there is no point in engaging you, because you are not dealing with the real laws that actually exist. The discussion is completely at cross purposes.

    I’ve linked the E-Verify manual over and over. There’s four outcomes to E-Verify. In every case, the manual states “..the employer chooses to exercise its legal right to allow the employee to continue work.”

    Do you acknowledge that it is legal for employers to employ illegals, yes or no?

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  58. No, David, I am fruitlssly “whining” about non-enforcement. I’m just amazed at what you’re saying. You don’t seem to even understand the current situation. How can you possibly think you have the fix if you don’t know the current state of affairs?

    That’s why I want to introduce a new player into the game — the IRS.

    No, the IRS is not a new player. They’ve been playing a central role in creating this fiasco. And now you want to reward their malfeasance by giving them expanded powers? As I said, that’s how you make things worse.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/30/irs-doesnt-tell-1-million-taxpayers-that-illegal-i/

    The IRS has discovered more than 1 million Americans whose Social Security numbers were stolen by illegal immigrants, but officials never bothered to tell the taxpayers themselves, the agency’s inspector general said in a withering new report released Tuesday.

    Investigators first alerted the IRS to the problem five years ago, but it’s still not fixed, the inspector general said, and a pilot program meant to test a solution was canceled — and fell woefully short anyway.

    …“It is stunning that the IRS has chosen to aid and abet identity thieves for so long instead of protecting the innocent victims of the theft,” said Sen. Daniel Coats, Indiana Republican.

    Koskinen argued that federal law prevents the IRS from informing the taxpayer who stole their SSN. But this is the same IRS who protected an agent who, it was discovered during the IRS targeting investigation, who illegally divulged the confidential tax information of donors who to a conservative group that opposes SSM to the dishonestly named Human Rights Campaign, a radical LGBT group that supports SSM and more.

    The agent clearly violated the law that Koskinen argues protects even the identities of illegal aliens. But through some sort of pretzel logic decided that the agent couldn’t be prosecuted for violating the law because, being a taxpayer himself, the agent’s identity was protected by the very law he violated.

    I would drain the swamp myself. Not add more pollution to it by giving the IRS new laws it would like to enforce as a reward for refusing to enforce laws it doesn’t like.

    Everything the IRS is doing to aid illegal alien identity theft is purely a matter of internal policy. It doesn’t have any basis in federal law. In fact, I would say it violates it. But it’s an easy legislative fix. And the states can get in on the act as well.

    On December 13, federal district court Judge Andrew S. Hanen of Brownsville, Texas, issued his order in U.S. v. Nava-Martinez. It described in shocking detail the malfeasance of the government.

    …As Judge Hanen pointed out, the human-trafficking conspiracy instigated by Salmeron Santos was interrupted when Nava-Martinez was arrested, but the “goal of the conspiracy was successfully completed thanks to the actions of the United States.” Hanen expressed grave concern over the “apparent policy of [DHS] of completing the criminal mission of individuals who are violating the border security of the United States.” After the child was taken into custody, DHS agents learned that the mother had “instigated this illegal conduct.” Yet DHS delivered the child to the mother and took no enforcement action: “It did not arrest her. It did not prosecute her. It did not even initiate deportation proceedings for her.” As the judge said, “instead of enforcing the laws of the United States, the Government took direct steps to help the individuals who violated it,” conduct for which any “private citizen would, and should, be prosecute.”

    Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/366830/federal-judge-obama-administration-aids-and-abets-human-trafficking-hans-von-spakovsky

    A future Obama administration may try to roll back some of the gains that can be made now that that the GOP controls the legislative and executive branches. But while the courts may buy the argument that the feds have exclusive authority over immigration, they can not argue that authority also extends to state crimes such as identity theft and human trafficking.

    Because of rogue, lawless agencies aiding and abetting criminal illegal aliens in their crimes, many states have stepped up and crafted legislation so they can prosecute the illegal alien identity thieves the feds try to protect.

    As Judge Hanen points out, any private citizen would be prosecuted for taking “direct steps to help the individuals who violated [federal law].”

    Just as with identity theft, there is nothing to prevent states from tweaking their human trafficking laws to cover these activities as well.

    This isn’t a matter o state law superseding federal law; these rogue, lawless agencies are in fact violating federal law (most clearly in the case of ICE completing the criminal conspiracy). It would be an easy fix at the federal level to criminalize this behavior, and make it crystal clear that federal bureaucrats even at the highest level aren’t immune from state prosecution when they violate state laws that are consistent with or at least not in conflict with federal laws.

    This is not a matter of “moral outrage” but a matter of equality before the law. I do not understand your mania for granting rogue, lawless agencies that violate the law when those laws conflict with the sensibilities of senior bureaucrats new enforcement powers to go after groups they disfavor. By rewarding such behavior you guarantee getting more of the same. As I’ve said, the rogue agency problem is worse than the illegal immigration problem. Your AWD is simply addressing a symptom of the problem those rogue agencies have been instrumental in creating.

    You advocate treating the cut on a patient’s arm with a little disinfectant and a bandage and then send him home. I’m focusing on the fact that as long as we have the patient in the ER we ought to address the reality that the arm with the minor cut is broken in multiple places.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  59. * No, David, I am not fruitlssly “whining” about non-enforcement

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  60. Gabriel,

    In the case of IRS Commissioner v. Tellier, 383 U.S. 694, the court held that deductions could be disallowed when the expenses claimed are related to unlawful conduct, when to allow those deductions would sharply frustrate a national policy prohibiting such conduct.

    Similarly, IRS Code Section 162(f) states that fines and penalties a business pays the government for violations of any law are never deductible.

    The Affirmative Wage Deduction (AWD) proposal simply applies these precedents. It is a tax proposal, not a change in immigration law. I am claiming that President Trump could invoke this precedent and direct the new IRS Commissioner to disallow any tax deductions for payments made to illegal alien employees (W-2) or vendors (1099). This could be done, as President Obama has done in other matters, by an Executive Order or adoption of new regulations.

    In order to implement AWD, the IRS would be required to utilize the databases maintained by the Social Security Administration and Homeland Security, and DMVs (photo ID) and county clerks (birth certificates) in the various states.

    So your question to be is irrelevant. You miss the point. AWD has nothing to do with existing laws about hiring illegal immigrants. In fact, there could be no legal consequences whatsoever for businesses to hire illegal immigrants as far as I’m concerned. So I’m ignoring your question because it has nothing to do with what I’m talking about!

    AWD is like a preferential tax program to incentivize business owners to hire legal workers instead of illegal workers. That’s no different than any other use of the tax code to encourage the pursuit of specific economic activities (purchasing equipment, adopting solar energy, hiring veterans, etc.)

    Sorry to go so deep into the weeds with this explanation, but you are making this a lot more complicated than it has to be. Stop focusing on whether or not hiring illegal aliens is against the law. Start focusing on using the tax code in a way to promote the outcome we seek.

    If you don’t mind seeing illegal aliens working in the US, then fine. State that up-front, and we’ll agree to disagree. However, if you wish to reduce the hiring of illegal immigrants and discourage more illegals from coming to the US, at the lowest cost, and with the least amount of racial discrimination, then you’ll support the AWD.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  61. Steve57,

    You don’t seem to be interested in discussing the content of my proposal. You are diving down the rabbit hole of non-enforcement and whining and complaining, and offering “solutions” that require firing thousands of illegal immigrant sympathizers working in the agencies that would be tasked with carrying out your wishes. Good luck with that. To me that enterprise is equivalent to having 10,000 men use shovels to dig a canal when you could use a few dozen bulldozers instead.

    You enjoy pounding your head against the wall because it must make you feel good. But everything you wrote is totally irrelevant as a critique of AWD. I know you’re mad that I don’t think you have a good grasp on how to solve this problem at the lowest cost and with the least amount of political effort possible. So then let’s just agree to disagree.

    I have run my own business with employees so please stop citing chapter and verse and sending links to items that have no relevance for the implementation of AWD.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  62. @David Barulich: I see you refused to acknowledge what the law actually is. It has everything to do with what you are talking about. It is not illegal to employ or hire illegals, provided you participate in a fake process that never tells if you are illegal or not.

    The reason this is relevant is because there is literally no reason to add and AWD “layer” to a legal environment designed to do nothing.

    Since employers have the legal right to hire and employ illegals, they will not care if they run them all through E-Verify. E-Verify, by design, does not tell an employer they have hired and illegal. Everyone will get their deduction, and no illegal will be thrown out of work or not hired, just like happens now.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  63. David, I’m not interested in discussing your proposal because it’s ridiculous to discuss taxing employers to discourage illegal immigration while DHS is complicit in criminal conspiracies to smuggle illegal aliens into the country.

    The left is importing a whole new unskilled dependent underclass to turn them into clients of the welfare state and, oh by the way, reliable clients of the Democratic party. And you’re worried about employers getting unwarranted tax breaks along the way.

    In order to implement AWD, the IRS would be required to utilize the databases maintained by the Social Security Administration and Homeland Security, and DMVs (photo ID) and county clerks (birth certificates) in the various states.

    Right. This time, boy, we can require these rogue, lawless agencies to follow the law! What you call “Whining” and “Beating my head against the wall” is apparently your way of avoiding the fact that you’re living in fantasy land. We haven’t been able to require anything of the IRS yet. It does what it wants. DHS does what it wants. The SSA does what it wants. The DoJ does what it wants. Hell, the VA does what it wants; it literally gets away with murder. Of course, David, this time will be different. Uh huh.

    I say until we get serious about fixing that problem, let the employers get those tax breaks. I want starve the beast and that means the more money the IRS can’t put its thieving hands on the better. You want to squeeze employers for more tax revenue when all that will do is feed the beast.

    Hanen expressed grave concern over the “apparent policy of [DHS] of completing the criminal mission of individuals who are violating the border security of the United States.” After the child was taken into custody, DHS agents learned that the mother had “instigated this illegal conduct.” Yet DHS delivered the child to the mother and took no enforcement action: “It did not arrest her. It did not prosecute her. It did not even initiate deportation proceedings for her.” As the judge said, “instead of enforcing the laws of the United States, the Government took direct steps to help the individuals who violated it,” conduct for which any “private citizen would, and should, be prosecute.”

    Great, David. Brilliant. Bravo, sir. We must make sure DHS has plenty of money to complete the human traffickers’ criminal conspiracy and have ICE agents transport the minor children of illegal aliens around the country and reunite them with their criminal parents. After all, it isn’t easy to save up the kind of money it takes to pay a coyote to smuggle people to the border when you’re willing to work for less than minimum wage in the cash economy. So when they do scrape together the five or ten thou it’s going to take to violate the laws of this country and smuggle their children in, it would be heartless to let them experience anything less than true value for their money. For the children. And I must admit your proposal to squeeze employers would be one way to make sure the feds have the wherewithal to do it.

    I just don’t why I should be interested. Unlike you, I don’t want to fund their malfeasance to the maximum extent possible. That’s just suicidal. And try to be consistent, David. Why should I be concerned with non-enforcement when it comes to non-enforcement of the tax code if employers are getting undeserved tax breaks when apparently it’s just stupid and immature to concern myself with non-enforcement of a multitude of laws that federal agents and bureaucrats break with impunity their entire careers?

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  64. Gabriel,

    I understand that you don’t care if illegal immigrants are working in the US. I understand that you don’t care about doing anything to stop it, and you’re not interested in actually reading anything I wrote about AWD to respond to your objections. Or perhaps, your reading comprehension scores are really, really low.

    Let’s just agree to disagree.

    I’ve acknowledged that the current laws are a sham. I’ve proposed using the tax code as another path that doesn’t rely on current laws. But you don’t seem to care about understanding how the tax code works so it’s best not to waste any more time on this with you.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  65. this is an enjoyable and spirited discussion

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  66. David, could you kindly explain how using the tax code against employers will do anything to stop illegal immigration when federal agencies are willing to break laws to aid and abet illegal immigration? The left wants illegal immigration for reasons wholly unrelated to any employer’s desire for cheap labor. And the federal bureaucracy is an arm of the left.

    Your proposal doesn’t do anything about that so by definition it can not stop illegal immigration.

    Illegal aliens will continue to make money even if this proposal is implemented. They’ll work as day laborers, they’ll run illegal roadside flower stores out of the backs of vans, or illegal roadside vegetable stands. And they still make many times more than they ever could in Mexico (not that all or most illegal aliens are from Mexico). Even if Trump cracks down on sanctuary cities and states he can only force so much compliance. States and municipalities will continue to turn a blind eye to these outlaw enterprises. Particularly the blue states and Democratic party machine cities that will regulate a legal business to death. Because they see these people as a political asset.

    To use another analogy, the pilot of this aircraft is deliberately flying the plane into the side of a mountain. You have a plan to make sure those passengers back in coach aren’t getting away with paying less than full price for a cocktail.

    If we’re not going to do something about the pilot I think everybody should get their cocktails for free.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  67. David, if in WWII every Captain of every ship in the Pacific, decided, in the dead of night, to return from his mission to San Francisco, the outcome would not have been to our liking. Steve is trying to point out to you that the laws that exist would work if they were enforced. We take for granted that our fathers, uncles, and grandfathers performed their duty seventy years ago, and won WWII. But other behaviors are not beyond imagination. Given that “our” agencies in 2016 choose not to enforce existing laws, what could possibly be achieved by creating more laws, or seating more agencies at the table?

    I appreciated your idea initially. Like you (or so I presume,) I have not been in a situation of hiring low-skilled or unskilled labor. Unlike me (and provably you,) Steve has. He’s simply saying that there’s more to this story than what you see on the surface, and you have not responded to him.

    BobStewartatHome (822f64)

  68. Steve57, BobStewartatHome,

    Let’s just stipulate for the sake of argument that AWD will eliminate good paying jobs for illegal aliens in industries like meat packing, construction, and agriculture where the employers rely on deducting wages paid to these illegals in order for it to make economic sense.

    Even if states like CA, IL, and NY welcome illegals, the business owners in these states would still fire most of their illegal work force because their taxes would increase, and their net income would decrease if they continued to employ illegals. This would be caused by changes in the federal tax code over which states have no control.

    So what would be left after these jobs are eliminated? Basically, jobs paid by homeowners that cannot deduct payments for home services to reduce their tax bill. Gardeners, baby-sitters, handymen, etc. AWD does not eliminate those jobs. However, there aren’t enough of those jobs around that pay high enough wages to attract over 12 million illegal immigrants. Maybe 2 or 3 million would still remain working these odd jobs after AWD.

    AWD is not a panacea. I am not opposed to building a wall. I support all the rigorous law enforcement advocated by Steve57. However, AWD would likely force over 10 million illegal immigrants to leave the country because they would have no means to support themselves. Steve57’s program can mop up the remaining 3 million.

    Sure it is possible that various states could open up their coffers to offer more welfare programs to support indigent illegals that are displaced by AWD, but I doubt that taxpayers of most states would tolerate that for long. And hell, that’s something Constitutionalist like us should support in a federal system. Let states do their own whacky stuff and see how long the Democrat regimes last in competition with the Red States.

    So it is a matter of proportion and focus. My program costs far less to implement and it works by stealth — relying on the profit motives and greed of business owners and illegals. Plus it doesn’t discriminate by race and ethnicity.

    Boosting Law enforcement measures, unfortunately as seen with Black Lives Matter, are always more susceptible to being portrayed negatively.

    So I’m just trying to be political savvy and clever about how to gore the ox of illegal immigrant advocates. I think Steve57 methods, while morally unassailable, are harder to implement.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  69. @David BArulich:Even if states like CA, IL, and NY welcome illegals, the business owners in these states would still fire most of their illegal work force

    How will they know who are the illegals? E-Verify won’t tell them.

    I keep pointing this out. You keep ignoring it.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  70. I think the issue with Steve57s approach is not so much the spirit behind it, but the time it would take to wash out the stables prior to sincere by-the-book enforcement.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  71. How will the government know who are the illegals, in order to know how much in tax deductions to remove, David?

    I keep asking, you keep ignoring.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  72. @urbanelftbehind:by-the-book enforcement.

    The book says illegals can legally work, provided meaningless hoops are jumped through. First the book needs to be rewritten.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  73. That’s one book, a very important book, but there are other “books” that can be referenced in the interim. If one has used false documents to attain employment, he or she may also have used those false documents to obtain merchandise via credit or bank services of a higher order than a simple checking account. That they would still be working just makes for a very embarassing setting for one’s arrest on other charges.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  74. Gabriel,

    When an employer enters employee data into E-Verify, the system queries the Social Security Administration’ (SSA) Numerical Identification File (Numident). If the person self-identifies as a citizen, then there are 2 possible responses:

    Confirmed or Tentative Non-Confirmation.

    If employee self-identifies as a non-citizen, then a further query is made of the US Citizens and Immigration Services to determine if employee has a work permit (green card, etc.).

    E-Verify’s only job is to confirm is someone is legally able to work. It’s purpose is not to identify illegal immigrants, although certainly there will be a high correlation between Tentative Non-Confirmation and illegal status. However, the Tentative Non-Confirmation could also apply to legal workers whose paperwork isn’t quite in order.

    Under Affirmative Wage Deduction (AWD) program, the IRS would work with the SSA so that E-Verify would be augmented to issue a confirmation number to an employer when a specific employee is CONFIRMED as a legal worker. When the employee files his employee tax information to the IRS, he will have to insert this confirmation number along with the employee’s SSN.

    Then the IRS will match the submitted confirmation number from the tax filings with the SSA’s database to confirm if that number is authentic. If the number is authentic, then the employer will be allowed to deduct that employee’s wages to reduce his taxable income. The IRS would issue a report at the end of the year calculating the total amount of wages and vendor payments made that were authenticated for taxable income reduction.

    The IRS doesn’t have to know who is illegal. It only has to know who is confirmed as a citizen by E-Verify. Remember, that AWD is simply a program to give tax benefits to employers who pay legal workers to give them an advantage versus employers who employ illegals. It is not intended to identify who should be deported.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  75. Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2016 @ 11:12 am

    How will they know who are the illegals? E-Verify won’t tell them.

    When the IRS notifies them, and disallows business expenses, and increases their taxes and maybe they go out of business.

    Sammy Finkelman (96f386)

  76. 71. Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2016 @ 11:15 am

    How will the government know who are the illegals, in order to know how much in tax deductions to remove, David?

    He says the wages of everyone whose citizenship or permanent residence is not vouched for by e-verify will be presumed, not to be deductible as a business expense. Errors will be made one way or the other, whatever you do, and he’s for erring on the side of discouraging employment. There will be a whole bunch of U.S. citizens whose eligibility has not been proven. Those will be people whose names are not definitely connected to a Social Security account.

    If the e-verify system chokes, employers might not know for some time if the wages can be deducted.

    Of course, the system will be gamed.

    Sammy Finkelman (96f386)

  77. Gabriel,

    First of all, AWD would require a transition period where everyone who receives a Tentative Non-Confirmation message has a chance to correct the problem. 12 months, maybe longer?

    After the initial phase-in period, anyone who logs into E-Verify for the first time could be given a 120 day grace period (or longer if you wish) to correct any errors

    Yes, errors are made all the time in life. And people correct those errors all the time. Persons legally permitted to work in the US should have their documents in order with the SSA and any other agency tasked with verifying their legal status. What’s wrong with that? People should have their documents in order. Getting serious about documentation accuracy will also help efforts at stemming voter fraud.

    Define what you mean by E-Verify system “chokes”? You mean that it is offline because of a computer glitch or power outage, etc? Really? Is that the Trump card you are going to play to prove your point? Well, I’m sure that intelligent adults will figure out excellent contingency plans if that did occur.

    And how exactly is the system to be “gamed”? Inserting a La Raza mole into the SSA who enters data into the Numindent system so that E-Verify returns confirmation numbers for illegals? Jason Bourne might be able to do it if he were a real live human being and a member of La Raza or the Hispanic Caucus.

    I’d like to hear some specifics about how you envision this system to be “gamed”?

    If you demand 100% accuracy or else you oppose it, then fine. I believe that is a ridiculous standard that you would not apply to many other persons, agencies, or businesses you deal with.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  78. if we’ve learned anything by now it’s that Mr. Trump will do the right thing

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  79. David Barulich (67ea6a) — 12/7/2016 @ 3:58 pm

    Define what you mean by E-Verify system “chokes”? You mean that it is offline because of a computer glitch or power outage, etc?

    That could also happen, but would probably last no more than a day to a week.

    By “chokes” I mean: Cannot handle all the volume.

    You have the possibility of the system getting more and more delayed and dysfunctional as time goes on. Most of us are familiar with systems like that. Money will not be appropriated to keep it working right. The deterioration will be slow. Happens all the time. Just think of any financial aid application process. Or the DMV.

    And how exactly is the system to be “gamed”? Inserting a La Raza mole into the SSA who enters data into the Numindent system so that E-Verify returns confirmation numbers for illegals?

    I don’t mean hacked. Although that can happen too. There will be lots of people who would want the system to go down. People could also falsely report people dead, and when care is taken to not let that be done easily, falsely keep epeople alive.

    I’d like to hear some specifics about how you envision this system to be “gamed”?

    People working (with permission) under other people’s Social Security numbers, as all the system does is verify that a Social Security account exists under a certain name – the true owner of the Social Security number could be compensated by getting a tax refund or by being enrolled in a health insurance plan; employees being categorized as independent contractors; work being subcontracted out to smaller businesses, maybe not covered by the law; some employees being overpaid and told to pay the illegal people; employees being disguised in the accounting as purchases of goods; steady employees working under a number of different names.

    Mostly by Mom and Pop businesses. Which may therefore deliberatly not grow.

    If you demand 100% accuracy or else you oppose it, then fine. I believe that is a ridiculous standard that you would not apply to many other persons, agencies, or businesses you deal with.

    Credit card systems fail, but it’s merchants or the bank who have to pay. The question is who pays when there are errors. Under your system, do you err on the side eligibility or do you err against it?

    Now here’s another thing. Authorized users are OK with credit cards. Here, I think you don’t want there to be any authorized users of a Social Security account.

    By the way, ID systems in fact have created trouible for people in Sri Lanka and in China. People steal college records in China. In Sri Lanka if people lose a piece of paper they could be in big trouble.

    Sammy Finkelman (96f386)

  80. @David: So you are saying that we should deny deductions to anyone who shows up non-confirmed, and doesn’t fix it in a year.

    But you also say, those people are not all illegal, because (as I agree) E-Verify by design does not check for illegal status.

    So instead of denying deductions after a year, why not require they be fired, which is what most people think the law is supposed to do? That would be far more effective at getting illegals to leave than denying deductions.

    If you are going to change E-Verify so it “confirms” workers, then why not require that workers not confirmed be terminated?

    If you’re worried about it being “permission to work”, exactly the same reasoning applies to your scheme. If a citizen can’t straighten out their documents in a year, why should they be fired because their employer can’t deduct them? It’s just as unjust in one case as in another.

    That’s what I’m not getting past. It sounds to me as though you advocate a system that will have all the same weaknesses as the current one, but imposes a bunch of extra steps and will be no more effective and no less easily gamed by a bureaucracy determined to subvert it.

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  81. Gabriel, Sammy,

    If you require people to be fired if they are Tentatively Non-Confirmed, then you turn employers into agents of the government. I don’t want to do that.

    I don’t want AWD to be turned into a PERMISSION TO WORK PROGRAM. That places too high of a burden on the operation of the system. Making it a taxation tool instead of a criminal detection tool increases its political viability.

    And regarding gaming the system, there are numerous algorithms that could be employed to detect fraud. Use of duplicate SSNs at different jobs with hours claimed over 70 per week could trigger an automatic audit and visit by a live agent to the places of employment of those 2 different job locations, especially if one job type didn’t match the skills of the second. Smart people will figure out ways to deal with the ones trying to game the system.

    It’s not foolproof, but there won’t be 12 million people gaming the system.

    David Barulich (67ea6a)

  82. David Barulich (67ea6a) — 12/8/2016 @ 5:07 am

    I don’t want AWD to be turned into a PERMISSION TO WORK PROGRAM. That places too high of a burden on the operation of the system. Making it a taxation tool instead of a criminal detection tool increases its political viability.

    While it would not be a PERMISSION TO WORK PROGRAM, it would be a PERMISSION FOR THE BUSINESS TO DEDUCT YOUR WAGES PROGRAM, and most sizeable businesses, I think, would treat the non-deductability of wages as a prohibition.

    They won’t just accept that some subset of wages will not be deducted. They are necessary business expenses.

    If you require people to be fired if they are Tentatively Non-Confirmed, then you turn employers into agents of the government. I don’t want to do that.

    Either you want people to be fired or you don’t. If you REPLACE the prohibition with non-deductibility, you will leave some margin foer businesses, but in the end, ether that’s stopping employen or it’s not. Maybe you just want a small surtax on wages paid to certain non-citizens. I don’t know how that will go over – usually few people are in favor of taxing the poor more.

    And regarding gaming the system, there are numerous algorithms that could be employed to detect fraud. Use of duplicate SSNs at different jobs with hours claimed over 70 per week could trigger an automatic audit and visit by a live agent to the places of employment of those 2 different job locations, especially if one job type didn’t match the skills of the second. Smart people will figure out ways to deal with the ones trying to game the system.

    Sure, but it’s expensive, hard to establish for certain, and people could learn to take more care. Smart people will learn how to game things better, and they have more reason to study up on it. Unless there are big financial or criminal penalties, but they won’t matter until they actually happen.

    It’s not foolproof, but there won’t be 12 million people gaming the system.

    Necessity is the mother of invention.

    All over the country there is a 21-year old drinking age, yet the system is widely acknowledged to be gamed by teennagers. Only when it reaches a sizeable scale is there any kind of enforcement against bars and nightclubs.

    You want such a system to work, or start out working, you need to have only a small number of people interested in gaming the system. Otherwise, somebody will figure out how, and it will spread quickly.

    How long did it take for Prohibition to stop working?

    Sammy Finkelman (96f386)

  83. @David:And regarding gaming the system, there are numerous algorithms that could be employed to detect fraud. Use of duplicate SSNs at different jobs with hours claimed over 70 per week could trigger an automatic audit and visit by a live agent to the places of employment of those 2 different job locations, especially if one job type didn’t match the skills of the second.

    And, as I tire of repeating, they could do that NOW. But they don’t.

    If your proposal would work it would not be necessary, because we could enforce work authorization without it at any time. And for the same reason, if it actually would work it would never be adopted.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  84. Sammy,

    While it would not be a PERMISSION TO WORK PROGRAM, it would be a PERMISSION FOR THE BUSINESS TO DEDUCT YOUR WAGES PROGRAM, and most sizeable businesses, I think, would treat the non-deductability of wages as a prohibition.

    Precisely!!! After all, the point is to make employers who hire illegal employees less competitive against employers who hire legal employees. This is a tax-incentive program to favor legal employees over illegal employees. There is a HUGE legal distinction between firing someone because they don’t qualify for a tax deduction versus firing them because of a suspicion that they are in fact illegal employees.

    Practically, it makes not difference, but legally there is a world of difference.

    Gabriel,

    The IRS conducts audits all the time to maximize the revenue collected from businesses. The IRS has a greater incentive to conduct audits than the SSA or Homeland Security. There is a world of difference between a tax matter and a criminal matter. That’s why under AWD there is a higher likelihood that these audits would be conducted to root out fraud.

    When the government has a criminal matter, it is far more costly for the government to take steps to prosecute the illegal immigrant or the employer because the burden of proof rests upon the government. In an IRS audit, it is the taxpayer who must incur expenses to reverse the decisions made by the IRS. No employer is going to incur significant expenses to reverse an IRS ruling based on the E-Verify system’s findings because the burden is upon the employee to demonstrate they have the proper documentation.

    Prohibition was a criminal matter. However, bootleggers who attempt to sell alcohol today without paying taxes are tracked down by the Feds with extreme prejudice! See the distinction between criminal prosecution and tax collection?

    David Barulich (67ea6a)


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