Myth 4 - Immigrants Don't Pay Taxes

1. Yes they do
1. All immigrants, regardless of status, pay sales tax, real-estate tax, gas tax, etc.
2. Some immigrants working in the informal labor market get paid "under the table" and don't have fed/state income tax withheld, but so do many non-immigrant workers (nannys, housecleaners, the self-employed).

2. Informal/Secondary market
1. Businesses, through elaborate systems of subcontracting, have increasingly moved jobs to the informal market (especially textile manufacturing) in order to produce cheaper goods.

3. Formal/Primary market
1. Many immigrants, including "undocumented" ones work in the formal market and pay income tax like everyone else. They do so by presenting false SSN #s to employers. Social Security Admin estimates 75% of undocumented workers do this. So 75% of "undocumented" immigrants are paying taxes just like everyone else. Money taken via false SSN#s is kept and lumped into a single bucket.
2. These payers are not entitled to hardly any direct public benefits like social security or unemployment benefits that their taxes pay for .
3. "illegal imigrant workers…are providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year" (38).