• Lojcs@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    How is the government getting taxes from people it doesn’t know exist?? I thought you had to file your taxes yourself in America, why or how would the migrants even do that? Or if the employer is doing that, who do they say they are doing it for??

    • s38b35M5@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Filing taxes is how we get refunds for overpaying in the US.

      Paying taxes is done for us, through withholding out of our paychecks (don’t need a SS#, as a TIN will do here), sales tax on purchases of goods, and in other ways, like connected to housing, etc.

    • SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz
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      2 days ago

      While immigrants in the country without authorization do not have Social Security numbers, they can file taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN.

      Reports about 3m people file using an ITIN each year, and the number of people expected to legally use them is very small.

      Also says they see about $12B more paid into social security by illegals than paid out.

      As Al Capone found, the government is would rather you pay tax on illegally earned money.

      • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        Every couple months I learn of another way the us government interacts with ‘undocumented’ migrants. I find it supremely silly that these people have identification numbers, pay taxes, are counted for the census and participate in elections but they’re still referred to as ‘undocumented’?? They clearly are documented, wtf does ‘undocumented’ mean then?

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        As Al Capone found, the government is would rather you pay tax on illegally earned money.

        That was more an end run around accidentally indicting all the state and federal officials who’d gotten wrapped up in his corruption.

        Capone should have gone down for murder years earlier, but too much of the early Hoover Era FBI was willing to turn a blind eye to Capone’s mafia exploits or rat out informants before they could go to trial.

      • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        Is sales tax included in prices? I’ve seen people online saying it’s often not since it varies from place to place?

        • edgemaster72@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Correct, sales tax is not included in pricing in the US. I learned that at a fairly young age when I wanted to spend $20 I had from my birthday on a $20 Lego set when whoops, need another dollar (thankfully my mom was there to cover it)

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      How is the government getting taxes from people it doesn’t know exist??

      Going to the store and handing over my money for the stuff. There’s a % sales tax at the bottom of my receipt, but how is this possible?! I didn’t tell the government I was going shopping today.

      Drive back home to my apartment, where I pay my rent for the month. My landlord forward a chunk of that money to the city as real estate taxes. But I never formally registered my citizenship at this address, so how can that be?

      Heading to the bar where I earn my living. Most of my income is in tips, which my boss collects and skims the business tax rate off of before distributing the balance. But there’s no bartender’s license to work here, so how did he know to do that?

      Omw home, I’ve got to remember to re-register my car and buy more gas-taxed petrol and damn it feels like there’s a lot of ways for a government to collect tax money from me.

      • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        Could you not write this less condescending? I’m sorry I’m not from the US. When I heard people say that sales tax isn’t included in the price and that you need to file your taxes every year I assumed that was how the tax was collected.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I’m sorry I’m not from the US.

          Sales, real estate, and other consumption taxes aren’t unique to the US.

          When I heard people say that sales tax isn’t included in the price and that you need to file your taxes every year

          You’re hearing bullshit. There was a historical loophole by which online merchants asserted that sales taxes needed to be collected from the individuals purchasing the goods rather than the businesses selling them. That loophole has long since been closed.

          But virtually nobody paid the tax. Few people even know how or what they might owe. And even if they had, you don’t need to be a citizen to buy something online.