Reframing Taxigration

“Taxigration,” the intersection between immigration and tax law, is a policy area that needs to be reexamined and reformed in order to ensure that immigrant workers are both paying taxes and receiving some benefits for doing so.  “Reforming Taxigration,” from the Tennessee Law Review, notes that the term emerged to describe a situation where immigrants filed tax returns as part of a path to legalization. Unauthorized immigrants can pay taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) while remaining ineligible for many taxpayer benefits such as social security. Author Jacqueline Lainez Flanagan notes that this phenomenon has given the Social Security Administration a net surplus of more than a trillion dollars between 1937 and 2012. The article notes that because of the chilling effect of the Trump presidency, as well as new legislation since the early 2000s, immigrants are becoming less likely to apply for ITINs. The author suggests that unauthorized immigrant taxpayers deserve increased legal protections, and suggests reforms that would tie immigration benefits to paying taxes, which would in turn expand the U.S. tax base: “The modest proposal central to this work is that if additional protections are granted to undocumented workers who file income taxes, the surge in tax returns filed would benefit both national and state tax revenues and our national immigration system.” (Clare Maxwell for The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute)

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