I've heard many people (professors, politicians, etc) say that Illegals actually pay more taxes than the money they take from services they consume (education, health care) or crimes they commit.  I somehow don't believe that.

Any figures / data I can find to either support or dispute the above statements?

Thanks!

What about since they are the ones spouting that off, that THEY provide the numbers?  

Because I call

I call BS, too.  I remember a long time ago, before this whole thing finally exploded, that the State of California alone spends $15 billions on health care for illegals.  And since they are ILLEGALS, how did they pay taxes (other than sales tax?).

Only liberal potheads believe that.

While I am 100% against illegals...
A huge amount of them pay withholding tax (which is never reclaimed).
Employers want cheap labor, but not the risk....
SO they have some payroll service do the payroll.
You have all illegals bring in some form of S.S. card.
They maybe real they may not be...that is the catch...
Your not paid by the .gov to investigate the card, you just process the paperwork and move on.
The employer "looks" like they are playing by the rules and the illegal is the only one who looks like they are the ones doing wrong. The whole time everyone knows the SS number and card is bogus...all the way up to the .gov.

Here are some facts on this issure:  www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/12/06/news/top_stories/19_56_5812_5_04.txt
www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty2.htm
The High Cost of Cheap Labor
Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget

Executive Summary

This study is one of the first to estimate the total impact of illegal immigration on the federal budget. Most previous studies have focused on the state and local level and have examined only costs or tax payments, but not both. Based on Census Bureau data, this study finds that, when all taxes paid (direct and indirect) and all costs are considered, illegal households created a net fiscal deficit at the federal level of more than $10 billion in 2002. We also estimate that, if there was an amnesty for illegal aliens, the net fiscal deficit would grow to nearly $29 billion.

Among the findings:

   *

     Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.
     
   *

     Among the largest costs are Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion).
     
   *

     With nearly two-thirds of illegal aliens lacking a high school degree, the primary reason they create a fiscal deficit is their low education levels and resulting low incomes and tax payments, not their legal status or heavy use of most social services.
     
   *

     On average, the costs that illegal households impose on federal coffers are less than half that of other households, but their tax payments are only one-fourth that of other households.
     
   *

     Many of the costs associated with illegals are due to their American-born children, who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth. Thus, greater efforts at barring illegals from federal programs will not reduce costs because their citizen children can continue to access them.
     
   *

     If illegal aliens were given amnesty and began to pay taxes and use services like households headed by legal immigrants with the same education levels, the estimated annual net fiscal deficit would increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total net cost of $29 billion.
     
   *

     Costs increase dramatically because unskilled immigrants with legal status -- what most illegal aliens would become -- can access government programs, but still tend to make very modest tax payments.
     
   *

     Although legalization would increase average tax payments by 77 percent, average costs would rise by 118 percent.
     
   *

     The fact that legal immigrants with few years of schooling are a large fiscal drain does not mean that legal immigrants overall are a net drain -- many legal immigrants are highly skilled.
     
   *

     The vast majority of illegals hold jobs. Thus the fiscal deficit they create for the federal government is not the result of an unwillingness to work.
     
   *

     The results of this study are consistent with a 1997 study by the National Research Council, which also found that immigrants' education level is a key determinant of their fiscal impact.

A Complex Fiscal Picture
Welfare use. Our findings show that many of the preconceived notions about the fiscal impact of illegal households turn out to be inaccurate. In terms of welfare use, receipt of cash assistance programs tends to be very low, while Medicaid use, though significant, is still less than for other households. Only use of food assistance programs is significantly higher than that of the rest of the population. Also, contrary to the perceptions that illegal aliens don't pay payroll taxes, we estimate that more than half of illegals work "on the books." On average, illegal households pay more than $4,200 a year in all forms of federal taxes. Unfortunately, they impose costs of $6,950 per household.



Social Security and Medicare. Although we find that the net effect of illegal households is negative at the federal level, the same is not true for Social Security and Medicare. We estimate that illegal households create a combined net benefit for these two programs in excess of $7 billion a year, accounting for about 4 percent of the total annual surplus in these two programs. However, they create a net deficit of $17.4 billion in the rest of the budget, for a total net loss of $10.4 billion. Nonetheless, their impact on Social Security and Medicare is unambiguously positive. Of course, if the Social Security totalization agreement with Mexico signed in June goes into effect, allowing illegals to collect Social Security, these calculations would change.

The Impact of Amnesty. Finally, our estimates show that amnesty would significantly increase tax revenue. Because both their income and tax compliance would rise, we estimate that under the most likely scenario the average illegal alien household would pay 77 percent ($3,200) more a year in federal taxes once legalized. While not enough to offset the 118 percent ($8,200) per household increase in costs that would come with legalization, amnesty would significantly increase both the average income and tax payments of illegal aliens.

What's Different About Today's Immigration. Many native-born Americans observe that their ancestors came to America and did not place great demands on government services. Perhaps this is true, but the size and scope of government were dramatically smaller during the last great wave of immigration. Not just means-tested programs, but expenditures on everything from public schools to roads were only a fraction of what they are today. Thus, the arrival of unskilled immigrants in the past did not have the negative fiscal implications that it does today. Moreover, the American economy has changed profoundly since the last great wave of immigration, with education now the key determinant of economic success. The costs that unskilled immigrants impose simply reflect the nature of the modern American economy and welfare state. It is doubtful that the fiscal costs can be avoided if our immigration policies remain unchanged.

Policy Implications
The negative impact on the federal budget need not be the only or even the primary consideration when deciding what to do about illegal immigration. But assuming that the fiscal status quo is unacceptable, there are three main changes in policy that might reduce or eliminate the fiscal costs of illegal immigration. One set of options is to allow illegal aliens to remain in the country, but attempt to reduce the costs they impose. A second set of options would be to grant them legal status as a way of increasing the taxes they pay. A third option would be to enforce the law and reduce the size of the illegal population and with it the costs of illegal immigration.

Reducing the Cost Side of the Equation. Reducing the costs illegals impose would probably be the most difficult of the three options because illegal households already impose only about 46 percent as much in costs on the federal government as other households. Thus, the amount of money that can be saved by curtailing their use of public services even further is probably quite limited. Moreover, the fact that benefits are often received on behalf of their U.S.-citizen children means that it is very difficult to prevent illegal households from accessing the programs they do. And many of the programs illegals use most extensively are likely to be politically very difficult to cut, such as the Women Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program. Other costs, such as incarcerating illegals who have been convicted of crimes are unavoidable. It seems almost certain that if illegals are allowed to remain in the country, the fiscal deficit will persist.

Increasing Tax Revenue by Granting Amnesty. As discussed above, our research shows that granting illegal aliens amnesty would dramatically increase tax revenue. Unfortunately, we find that costs would increase even more. Costs would rise dramatically because illegals would be able to access many programs that are currently off limits to them. Moreover, even if legalized illegal aliens continued to be barred from using some means-tested programs, they would still be much more likely to sign their U.S.-citizen children up for them because they would lose whatever fear they had of the government. We know this because immigrants with legal status, who have the same education levels and resulting low incomes as illegal aliens, sign their U.S.-citizen children up for programs like Medicaid at higher rates than illegal aliens with U.S.-citizen children. In addition, direct costs for programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit would also grow dramatically with legalization. Right now, illegals need a Social Security number and have to file a tax return to get the credit. As a result, relatively few actually get it. We estimate that once legalized, payments to illegals under this program would grow more than ten-fold.

From a purely fiscal point of view, the main problem with legalization is that illegals would, for the most part, become unskilled legal immigrants. And unskilled legal immigrants create much larger fiscal costs than unskilled illegal aliens. Legalization will not change the low education levels of illegal aliens or the fact that the American labor market offers very limited opportunities to such workers, whatever their legal status. Nor will it change the basic fact that the United States, like all industrialized democracies, has a well-developed welfare state that provides assistance to low-income workers. Large fiscal costs are simply an unavoidable outcome of unskilled immigration given the economic and fiscal realities of America today.

Enforcing Immigration Laws. If we are serious about avoiding the fiscal costs of illegal immigration, the only real option is to enforce the law and reduce the number of illegal aliens in the country. First, this would entail much greater efforts to police the nation's land and sea borders. At present, less than 2,000 agents are on duty at any one time on the Mexican and Canadian borders. Second, much greater effort must be made to ensure that those allowed into the country on a temporary basis, such as tourists and guest workers, are not likely to stay in the country permanently. Third, the centerpiece of any enforcement effort would be to enforce the ban on hiring illegal aliens. At present, the law is completely unenforced. Enforcement would require using existing databases to ensure that all new hires are authorized to work in the United States and levying heavy fines on businesses that knowingly employ illegal aliens. Finally, a clear message from policymakers, especially senior members of the administration, that enforcement of the law is valued and vitally important to the nation, would dramatically increase the extremely low morale of those who enforce immigration laws.

Policing the border, enforcing the ban on hiring illegal aliens, denying temporary visas to those likely to remain permanently, and all the other things necessary to reduce illegal immigration will take time and cost money. However, since the cost of illegal immigration to the federal government alone is estimated at over $10 billion a year, significant resources could be devoted to enforcement efforts and still leave taxpayers with significant net savings. Enforcement not only has the advantage of reducing the costs of illegal immigration, it also is very popular with the general public. Nonetheless, policymakers can expect strong opposition from special interest groups, especially ethnic advocacy groups and those elements of the business community that do not want to invest in labor-saving devices and techniques or pay better salaries, but instead want access to large numbers of cheap, unskilled workers. If we choose to continue to not enforce the law or to grant illegals amnesty, both the public and policymakers have to understand that there will be significant long-term costs for taxpayers.

Summary Methodology
Overall Approach. To estimate the impact of households headed by illegal aliens, we rely heavily on the National Research Council's (NRC) 1997 study, "The New Americans." Like that study, we use the March Current Population Survey (CPS) and the decennial Census, both collected by the Census Bureau. We use the March 2003 CPS, which asks questions about income, household structure, and use of public services in the calendar year prior to the survey. We control total federal expenditures and tax receipts by category to reflect actual expenditures and tax payments. Like the NRC, we assume that immigrants have no impact on defense-related expenditures and therefore assign those costs only to native-headed households. Like the NRC, we define a household as persons living together who are related. Individuals living alone or with persons to whom they are unrelated are treated as their own households. As the NRC study points out, a "household is the primary unit through which public services are consumed and taxes paid." Following the NRC's example of using households, many of which include U.S.-citizen children, as the unit of analysis makes sense because the presence of these children and the costs they create are a direct result of their parents having been allowed to enter and remain in country. Thus, counting services used by these children allows for a full accounting of the costs of illegal immigration.

Identifying Illegal Aliens in Census Bureau Data. While the CPS does not ask respondents if they are illegal aliens, the Urban Institute, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and the Census Bureau have used socio-demographic characteristics in the data to estimate the size and characteristics of the illegal population. To identify illegal aliens in the survey, we used citizenship status, year of arrival in the United States, age, country of birth, educational attainment, sex, receipt of welfare programs, receipt of Social Security, veteran status, and marital status. This method is based on some very well-established facts about the characteristics of the illegal population. In some cases, we assume that individuals have zero chance of being an illegal alien, such as naturalized citizens, veterans, and individuals who report that they personally receive Social Security benefits or cash assistance from a welfare program or those who are enrolled in Medicaid. However, other members of a household, mainly the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, can and do receive these programs. We estimate that there were 8.7 million illegal aliens included in the March 2003 CPS. By design, our estimates for the size and characteristics of the illegal population are very similar to those prepared by the Census Bureau, the INS, and the Urban Institute.

Estimating the Impact of Amnesty. We assume that any amnesty that passes Congress will have Lawful Permanent Residence (LPR) as a component. Even though the President's amnesty proposal in January seems to envision "temporary" worker status, every major legalization bill in Congress, including those sponsored by Republican legislators, provides illegal aliens with LPR status at some point in the process. Moreover, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has indicated his strong desire to give LPR status to illegal aliens.

To estimate the likely impact of legalization, we run two different simulations. In our first simulation, we assume that legalized illegal aliens would use services and pay taxes like all households headed by legal immigrants with the same characteristics. In this simulation, we control for the education level of the household head and whether the head is from Mexico. The first simulation shows that the net fiscal deficit grows from about $2,700 to more than $6,000 per household. In the second simulation, we again control for education and whether the household head is Mexican and also assume that illegals would become like post-1986 legal immigrants, excluding refugees. Because illegals are much more like recently arrived non-refugees than legal immigrants in general, the second simulation is the more plausible. The second simulation shows that the net fiscal deficit per household would climb to $7,700.

Results Similar to Other Studies. Our overall conclusion that education level is the primary determinant of tax payments made and services used is very similar to the conclusion of the 1997 National Research Council report, "The New Americans." The results of our study also closely match the findings of a 1998 Urban Institute study, which examined tax payments by illegal aliens in New York State. In order to test our results we ran separate estimates for federal taxes and found that, when adjusted for inflation, our estimated federal taxes are almost identical to those of the Urban Institute. The results of this study are also buttressed by an analysis of illegal alien tax returns done by the Inspector General's Office of the Department of Treasury in 2004, which found that about half of illegals had no federal income tax liability, very similar to our finding of 45 percent.

Return to Table of Contents

Continue to Introduction

Quoted: What about since they are the ones spouting that off, that THEY provide the numbers?

Exactamundo.

* Illegal immigrants cost Arizona taxpayers $1.3 billion per year just for their health care, education and prison costs.  Source.

* As of 2004, the illegal immigrant population in Arizona was about 500,000. Source

Soooo....

A $1,600,000,000 tax bill divided by 500,000 illegal aliens equals $3,200 that every man, woman and child illegal immigrant would have to pay in Arizona taxes JUST for Arizona to break even.

So a family of four illegal immigrants would need to pay about $12,800 in Arizona taxes on average just to cover their own costs to the state.

And that doesn't include the indirect costs to Arizona citizens from skyrocketting property crimes, violent crimes, motor-vehicle accidents and thefts, higher insurance premiums, higher medical premiums, more communicable diseases, greater drug trafficking and availability, depressed wages, neighborhood blight... and on and on.



And now for my own number crunching....

So considering that the revenues payed to the state, county & city by illegal aliens from sales and property taxes may represent AT MOST about 20-30% of their income (just a rough guess) , then a family of four illegal immigrants would need to earn $42,667 to $64,000 in household income in order to assure that the state gets their $12,800 in sales and property taxes to cover their costs (IF they pay 20-30% of their income to state & local taxes).

Basically each and every man, woman and child illegal alien in Arizona would have to earn $10,667 to $16,000 per year and pay total effective state & local tax rate of between 20%-30% JUST FOR ARIZONA TO BREAK EVEN.




More references:

Do the math: Costs of illegals outweigh benefits

Research the impact of illegal immigration in your state here.

I just heard today on the news that illegals use 10 billion more than they pay, and if they were legalized, it would be worse because their services would go up without much increase in taxes.

Now, I just moved out of my evil bitches' house and only have one channel right now. It is the Alaska Rural Communications Network, they jump around, and I don't know what news show it was, nor do I have a link, as I was dealing with house hold chores in my rental cabin, which will now be my home.

WTFIGOWTS- The ROP link got canned because of no link and comments of a religious-blah, blah, blah. What the fuck is going on with this site? I know it is privately owned, but come the fuck on. Since when is the truth such a horrible thing?

Let the professionals reimburse the crime victims out of their own pockets, then, if they benefit so much.

No because that is the biggest pile of crap I have ever heard.

Thank you, guys!  I have to go to bed, but I know what I'll be reading tomorrow.  Thanks again!

I heard it costs $25,000+ a year to keep an inmate in jail. Since there's a large number of illegal aliens in jail, then the illegals outside of jail have to be in the high tax brackets just to break even.

It costs about $10,000 to deliver a child. It's split between the family, tax base, insurance, etc... An illegal alien can't possibly be generating enough revenues to pay the out-of-pocket costs, the tax revenue, and they sure aren't covered!

Illegals remit a large chunk of their income overseas. Those monies are no longer circulating in the US economy. That is a huge opportunity cost because the US has a far more productive economy than the miserable backwards nations the illegals came from. Just imagine how that money could have been used if it stayed in the US?

The latest figures that Lou Dobbs gave was they contribute 8-9 billion dollars to the economy.  They use over 50 billion in services.

I could believe that they pay more taxes and dont get a return on them.

Illegals pay taxes, be it income taxes on someone elses SSN, or sales taxes.

Illegals should not be getting welfare, foodstamps, or social security. In the cases where they are thats just because the government is fucked and lets all kinds of trash get and stay on welfare.

In Texas there is no state income tax. So even if an illegal is getting paid under the table they are still getting taxed thier full ammount when they buy anything.

Quoted: The latest figures that Lou Dobbs gave was they contribute 8-9 billion dollars to the economy.  They use over 50 billion in services.

Link?

Here it is:

DOBBS: That economy, we know the estimates by the most authoritative and recent study put the suppressed wages at $200 billion a year, as a result of immigration, both legal and illegal. We know that the costs, the estimated costs run about $50 billion for services, and I can't tell you, Mr. Chairman, how many people have said to me, typically, open borders activists, in support of illegal aliens, but we provide $7 billion in Social Security taxes every year, as if that is some sort of reasonable offset.

transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/02/ldt.01.html

How about the man power?  We spend countless hours tracking criminals that should not of been here in the first place. Take one look at  our  legal system..jails etc..  That in itself is enough to convince me they're a Burden.

Maybe we should have invaded mexico instead of iraq?

Quoted:
I've heard many people (professors, politicians, etc) say that Illegals actually pay more taxes than the money they take from services they consume (education, health care) or crimes they commit.  I somehow don't believe that.

Any figures / data I can find to either support or dispute the above statements?

Thanks![/quote

Acording to Lou Dobbs, Cnn; illegal mexicans contribute 70 billion each year to the eonomy.  Then, they send home to Mexico; 20 billion.  They suppress US wages by another 20 billion, plus their dependents eat up another 50 bilion in medical and social services.

tag for the sources.

Illegals pays more taxes than the services they acquire

My ass.