ID and Tax Still Makes Sense

In April, President Trump issued a proclamation suspending most methods of legal immigration. His proclamation says that the entry of immigrants will present a risk to the US labor market during the economic recovery following the COVID-19 lockdown and that “we need to prioritize Americans and the existing immigrant population” in our current state of high unemployment.

In my opinion, the first thing we need to do to is help businesses open back up!

Secondly, this is a great opportunity for both Ds and Rs to work together to improve the position of American citizens in the labor market. Doing nothing will encourage more misclassification (treating employees as subcontractors). Employers that misclassify avoid paying for Medicare and Social Security taxes, Texas unemployment taxes, Worker’s Compensation insurance, and overtime wages. Those employers have virtually no labor burden, and when their workers are hurt, they go to the emergency room and most often the hospital does not get paid.

Congress can easily level the playing field by creating a method to ID and tax the 11 million undocumented immigrants who have been working here for years. Deporting them has proven not to be feasible. A New American Economy study says that doing so would cost the federal government $400 billion and shrink GDP by $1.6 trillion.   

Congress can create a method for those that pass criminal background checks to earn conditional work permits that require that they work for employers who deduct and match taxes. Coupling this with increased IRS enforcement on “who qualifies as an employee versus a subcontractor” would be a major step in the right direction and a big advantage to US citizen workers that want to make sure employers contribute to their Social Security accounts.  

Bottom line, even on our road to economic recovery, TxSIP’s ID ‘em and Tax ‘em policy still makes sense!

Please contact your lawmakers and ask both Ds and Rs to work together to help US citizens by passing a sensible ID and Tax policy for the 11 million undocumented.

God grant us a blessed recovery, may He heal our sick, and may He watch over our unemployed!