Would imposing a special tax on illegal aliens violate any tax treaties?

Question

This is a general academic question.

The politics and government immigration forum has spirited discussions about these sort of things, but if there is any tax expertise, it does not show.

Since people seem most concerned about aliens getting benefits, I am wondering if imposing a special tax to offset these concerns might be a valid policy option.

I was thinking that instead of a fine, they would agree to pay a surtax in order to be legalized. But if there was a tax on employers, they would be evading it if they did not make an effort. IRS has more infrastructure to enforce employer compliance than USCIS.

The 1935 Marijuana stamp tax was declared unconstitutional in Leary v. US. I was just curious if such a tax would be struck down as illegal or violative of our tax treaties.?

Answer 1

I am trying to envision a Form 1040-IA and it doesn't seem to be coming through. To a certain extent there is an illegal alien tax in the form of social security withheld from the wages of illegal aliens who will never get the opportunity to collect because of using false identification. The US used to have a $100 per ounce tax on marijuana but nobody ever filed a return for that either.

Answer 2

Taxing a problem has never worked. Cigarettes have a very high tax and they are still around. In that case there is a clear means to collect the tax. If we just enforce the current laws on the employers the immigration problem would go away. Start by locking up the CEO of WalMart and all of the board members. Work your way down through every industry by the size of the company. By the time you got to the Mom and Pop stores you won't be able to find an Illegal alien in the country.

Answer 3

And how do you propose to implement that? The illegals who are paying income tax are doing so with fake social security numbers, and if they're not filing in the first place, there wouldn't be a way to put a surtax on them.