1 week Ago
With tax day fast approaching, Americans have good reason to be concerned about the information they are supplying to the federal government. It is no longer secure or protected, thanks to President Donald Trump and his squad at the Department of Government Efficiency.Obviously Americans should file their taxes, but they need Congress to stop the illegal infiltration of sensitive data from tax records, including that of tax-paying immigrants, if the country is to ever have confidence that information will not be used against them.
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the Trump administration has discussed plans to send more people, including U.S. citizens, to prisons in El Salvador notorious for their deplorable human rights record.
Leavitt seemed unconcerned that such an egregious violation of due process would violate the Constitution and tenets central to the American criminal justice system.That follows reports that the Internal Revenue Service agreed to share private and protected taxpayer information with the Department of Homeland Security as DHS looks to accelerate its immigrant roundup and deportation efforts.Rather than being the freeloaders caricatured by the president and his allies, immigrants, even those here illegally, pay taxes.
A study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, including sending $59.4 billion to Washington.
The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis reported that undocumented workers in Virginia paid about $689.8 million in state and local taxes in 2022.The IRS has long encouraged these workers to file taxes annually using an individual taxpayer identification number, a nine-digit code that substitutes for a Social Security number.
In turn, those workers who complied sent billions to Washington, Richmond and other states to fund programs, such as Social Security and Medicaid, that they cannot legally access.Now the White House intends to use that compliance against them. And while the administration insists the agreement between the IRS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement is only a carve out exemption, and that citizens’ tax records would remain private, the ongoing ransacking of the government by DOGE and the White House’s eagerness to defy court orders would suggest otherwise.
Some may reason that these individuals, who are here illegally but who are still paying their taxes, should still be forcibly removed from the country for breaking immigration laws. That’s certainly what the president believes and a message that won him 77 million votes in November.However, the administration has readily admitted that, even in the few weeks since taking office, it has mistakenly deported people who are here legally, who have followed all the rules and who, in some cases, are American citizens.
The weaponization of tax records represents a new front in the White House war on immigrants, but it’s not much of a stretch to believe the abuse won’t stop with those who have violated immigration law. The president has made no secret of his willingness to use the federal government’s immense power to target those he doesn’t like or who oppose him. IRS records would enable him to do so with greater precision.
Sign up for Viewpoints, an opinion newsletterSo what of the average taxpayer in Hampton Roads? Surely they have nothing to fear? Perhaps, but perhaps not. There is no telling what the White House will do next; unpredictability is arguably this administration’s defining characteristic.But one thing is sure: By accessing sensitive taxpayer records and using them for immigration enforcement, the Trump administration is undermining any confidence whatsoever in the central mechanism for revenue collection.
A dysfunctional and weaponized IRS will only cause undocumented immigrants from paying into the system and could discourage citizens from doing the same.Nobody likes the taxman, but we understand his importance. Making the IRS a weapon of the deportation agenda erodes trust that the personal, private information shared with it will be used for nefarious purposes and that will be difficult, if not impossible, to reverse.
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