James Costello: Undocumented immigrants pay $10 billion in taxes

Re “Movie shows MJC’s bias “ (Letters, Nov. 16): The recent letter complaining about illegal immigrants stated that they do not pay income taxes. This is not correct. A study by the non-profit, non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that:

“Undocumented immigrants currently pay $1.2 billion in personal income taxes, $1.2 billion in property and $8 billion in sales and excise taxes.”

The study cites various studies estimating between 50 and 75 percent of undocumented immigrants currently pay personal income taxes either using false social security numbers or individual tax identification (ITIN) numbers. The studies say undocumented immigrants currently contribute a collective estimated $10.6 billion in state and local taxes each year and are paying an average effective tax rate of 6.4 percent.

Question: How many of these people do you think will collect on their Social Security contributions?

Read the study at www.itep.org/

This story was originally published November 18, 2014 at 12:51 PM with the headline "James Costello: Undocumented immigrants pay $10 billion in taxes."