Veterans take backseat to illegal immigrants

Veterans take backseat to illegal immigrants

The newly approved federal budget so highly touted by its congressional supporters is a travesty against our military veterans. While some compromises have to be made to get anything done in Washington, do fundamental principles of fairness have to sacrificed in the process? Does anyone really believe that a budget purportedly saving a paltry $23 billion over 10 years will even make a dent in our $17.2 trillion national debt?


Men and women who spent the most productive parts of their lives serving in the military to defend our country are now being asked to sacrifice their pensions to pay illegal immigrants for breaking our laws. What were our congressional leaders thinking when then incorporated this provision in the budget? More incredulously, how could they relegate our veterans to a status below illegal aliens?


Over the past several years IRS tax laws have been manipulated to favor illegal immigrants to the point where they actually pay them for breaking our laws! Before you think I’ve lost my mind, let me tell you about a little-known provision in our IRS regulations that growing numbers of illegal aliens are exploiting every year. It’s called the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN.


The ITIN was created for aliens who don’t have Social Security numbers. The program was developed for the purpose of collecting taxes on the income they earned in the U.S. even though they may be here illegally. Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? Well, in practice, when coupled with another IRS provision called the “Additional Child Tax Credit” (a provision in our tax laws that subsidizes low-income taxpayers who have dependent children by issuing tax refunds more than what they paid into the system), the ITIN quickly evolved into another loophole.


This scam was exposed earlier this year by a very sharp investigative reporter named Bob Segall with WHT-TV in Indianapolis. In a special documentary, he revealed actual tax returns submitted by illegal immigrants from Mexico that listed as many as 20 dependents, including nieces, nephews and cousins living in Mexico, who were allegedly dependent on their incomes. Unbelievably, these illegal immigrants received refunds for as much as $15,000 more than their taxes owed even though the “dependents” did not live in the U.S. as the Child Tax Refund provision requires.


According to a memo sent to the IRS by Russell George, Inspector General for the U.S. Treasury, these bogus claims cost more than $4.2 billion in 2012. Not surprisingly, the IRS has taken no steps to investigate or challenge the refunds. I guess they were too preoccupied denying tax exemption to Tea Party activists seeking to establish legitimate lobbying organizations as allowed by a Supreme Court ruling to investigate real cases of tax fraud.


I, for one, am sick and tired of the manner in which our military vets are being treated. Our nation was forged and has survived though the past 239 years on the blood, sweat and pain of our men and women in uniform. They deserve better than to be treated as sacrificial lambs in the budgeting process. The Republicans’ promise to look into the matter of restoring the COLA cuts later is an insult to our vets — they should never have been cut in the first place. How about a promise to cut tax credits to illegal aliens?

http://josephfreedomoranarchy.blogspot.com/2014/07/donate-and-support-veterans-project_30.html