Georgia Democrat John Barrow took to the floor of the House of
Representatives on Friday afternoon to critique the price of President
Obama’s trip to Africa, as its putative price tag is roughly
the equivalent of the sequester-induced spending cuts in the state of
Georgia.
'Very soon thousands of folks in my district in Georgia, and even
more across the state, will be furloughed as a result of the budget
sequester,” Barrow said. “Studies have shown that the sequester will
cost the Georgia economy approximately $107 million. Meanwhile, reports
circulated this week that President Obama’s upcoming trip to Africa will
cost the taxpayers nearly $100 million.
'Mr. Speaker, no one here questions the need for security for our
Commander-in-Chief. But we do question the need for
such expensive trips when so many folks across the country are being
forced to cut back because Congress can’t get its act together.
A trip of this magnitude isn’t unusual, but these are hard
times. One hundred million dollars could be better used
to keep folks on the job. I urge the President, and everyone at the
federal level, to lead by example, and not take the fact that Congress
can’t get its act together and rub that in the faces of hard working
Americans.'
Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service, which has been harassing right-wing groups for years, spends $50 million on a single conference, awarded $500 million in contracts to a company that is qualified under some disable-veterans programme because the contractor suffered an ankle injury playing football at a military prep school decades ago, and is demanding a further $1 billion so that 'things like this won't happen again,' has sent - sit down - 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 to 'unauthorised' alien
workers, i.e., those that are here illegally and are, by law, unauthorised to work in the United States, who all used the same address in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2011,
according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
From CNS News:
In fact, according to
a TIGTA audit report published last year, four
of the top ten addresses to which the IRS sent thousands of tax refunds to
“unauthorized” aliens were in Atlanta.
The IRS sent 11,284
refunds worth a combined $2,164,976 to unauthorized alien workers at a second
Atlanta address; 3,608 worth $2,691,448 to a third; and 2,386 worth $1,232,943
to a fourth.
Other locations on
the IG’s Top Ten list for singular addresses that were theoretically used
simultaneously by thousands of unauthorized alien workers, included an address
in Oxnard, Calif, where the IRS sent 2,507 refunds worth $10,395,874; an
address in Raleigh, North Carolina, where the IRS sent 2,408 refunds worth
$7,284,212; an address in Phoenix, Ariz., where the IRS sent 2,047 refunds
worth $5,558,608; an address in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where the IRS sent
1,972 refunds worth $2,256,302; an address in San Jose, Calif., where the IRS
sent 1,942 refunds worth $5,091,027; and an address in Arvin, Calif., where the
IRS sent 1,846 refunds worth $3,298,877.
Since 1996, the IRS
has issued what it calls Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to
two classes of persons: 1) non-resident aliens who have a tax liability in the
United States, and 2) aliens living in the United States who are “not
authorized to work in the United States.”
The IRS has long
known it was giving these numbers to illegal aliens, and thus facilitating
their ability to work illegally in the United States. For example, the Treasury Inspector General’s Semiannual Report to
Congress published on Oct. 29, 1999—nearly fourteen years
ago—specifically drew attention to this problem.
“The IRS issues
Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to undocumented aliens to
improve nonresident alien compliance with tax laws. This IRS practice seems
counter-productive to the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s (INS)
mission to identify undocumented aliens and prevent unlawful alien entry,”
TIGTA warned in that long-ago report.
The inspector
general’s 2012 audit report on the IRS’s handling of ITINs was spurred by two
IRS employees who went to members of Congress "alleging that IRS
management was requiring employees to assign Individual Taxpayer Identification
Numbers (ITIN) even when the applications were fraudulent.”
In an August 2012
press release accompanying the audit report, TIGTA said the report “validated”
the complaints of the IRS employees.
“TIGTA’s audit found
that IRS management has not established adequate internal controls to detect
and prevent the assignment of an ITIN to individuals submitting questionable
applications,” said Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J.
Russell George. “Even more troubling, TIGTA found an environment which
discourages employees from detecting fraudulent applications.”
In addition to the
23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 that the IRS sent to a single
address in Atlanta, the IG also discovered that the IRS had assigned 15,796
ITINs to unauthorized aliens who presumably used a single Atlanta address.
The IRS, according to
TIGTA, also assigned ITINs to 15,028 unauthorized aliens presumably using a
single address in Dallas, Texas, and 10,356 to unauthorized aliens presumably
living at a single address in Atlantic City, N.J.
Perhaps the most
remarkable act of the IRS was this: It assigned 6,411 ITINs to unauthorized
aliens presumably using a single address in Morganton, North Carolina. According
to the 2010 Census, there were only 16,681 people in Morganton. So, for the IRS
to have been correct in issuing 6,411 ITINS to unauthorized aliens at a single
address in Morganton it would have meant that 38 percent of the town’s total
population were unauthorized alien workers using a single address.
TIGTA said there were
154 addresses around the country that appeared on 1,000 or more ITIN
applications made to the IRS.
And, they wonder why we are so pissed off at Washington and aren't amenable to 'legalisation first, border security maybe' immigration reform?!?!?
Seriously?
http://tinyurl.com/qddestl
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