CAPS Launches National Ad Campaign to Block Earned Income Tax Credit for Unlawful Immigrants

Only President Obama’s White House could dream up and promote a program designed to grant Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs) to aliens who have never legally worked in the United States.

At a Senate Homeland Security Committee meeting, tax lawyer and former Justice Department tax division head Eileen J. O’Connor explained how the incredible scheme to waste taxpayers’ money and reward aliens who willfully broke U.S. immigration laws works.

According to O’Connor, unlawful immigrants granted deferred status under Obama’s executive action could file an amended tax return for the last three years that might qualify them for EITCs, and could total in the aggregate as high as $1.7 billion.

O’Connor explained that in 1999, the IRS Chief Counsel’s office issued a nonbinding ruling stating that when a person receives a Social Security number, he can file a retroactive amendment going back to the previous three years when he didn’t have a number. Since Obama’s amnesty will, if implemented, automatically provide as many as 5 million aliens with Social Security numbers, they will qualify for EITCs.

Illegal Immigrants on their way to collecting Earned Income Tax Credits?

For years, the EITC program has been a fraud-ridden, multi-billion dollar goldmine for aliens. In 2014, a press release issued by the Inspector General for Tax Administration stated that, in 2013, the IRS estimated that 22 to 26 percent of EITC payments were fraudulently issued, and that the total of improper payments ranged between $13.3 and $16.6 billion, sums consistent with previous years of squandering Americans’ money.

Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley introduced a bill to disallow the EITC for illegal immigrants included in Obama’s amnesty. Grassley noted that the EITC is intended to help working poor get into the labor force, and not to benefit aliens, a policy he labeled unfair to hardworking, law-abiding Americans who must fund the program. Watch Senator Grassley’s floor speech opposing EITC giveaways here.

The 2016 presidential campaign is well underway. Yet neither announced nor presumptive candidates have mentioned the EITC credit scandal even though Americans want enforcement and oppose alien entitlements.

CAPS has launched a new website here which encourages Americans to ask candidates where they stand on future amnesties and EITCs. The CAPS ad featured on the website aired April 7 and will run through April 15 both in Des Moines, Iowa, and on national cable television.