Angelika The German press is now reporting so much about Trump that I hardly know what to write that you don't already know. Even the demonstrations on April 15, the well-known Tax Day in the USA, were covered by Tagesschau. Demonstrators took to the streets to urge Trump to release his own tax returns, which is something every president traditionally does, but Trump doesn't care. He insists that his tax returns are off-limits.
Although the demonstrations took place on April 15, the actual deadline this year was on Tuesday, April 18. This is because if April 15 falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the taxes are not due until the following Monday. Rundbrief 06/2014 And this year, the people who procrastinate on filing their tax returns were doubly lucky because in the District of Columbia (i.e., Washington D.C.), Monday, April 17th was a holiday ("Emancipation Day"), which pushed the deadline to Tuesday, April 18th. Good for me, because I also like to postpone preparing our tax return for as long as possible.
I also belong to the group of people who prepare their tax return with the help of a software program called "Turbo Tax," but then do not submit it electronically to the American tax office. Instead, I print it out and send it by mail. This almost makes me an oddity, because according to the IRS (the American tax authority), over 90% of tax returns are now submitted to the tax office via the internet. My software program almost goes crazy and asks multiple times if I really want to print everything out. But I insist on it, because who really knows if the data is securely transmitted or if a hacker is already rubbing their hands in anticipation of accessing the data.
Admittedly, postal items also get lost or end up in the wrong hands, because nothing is truly secure. The tax office also does not publish any data on how it actually scans the submitted forms, as it naturally wants all taxpayers to choose the electronic route to save costs. In the past, post offices had longer opening hours on tax submission day. However, since the number of people sending their tax returns by mail has significantly decreased, the post office no longer does this.
But there is actually a post office in San Francisco that opens at seven o'clock in the morning from Monday to Friday. An absolute rarity. It is located on Evans Avenue in the formerly quite notorious Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. So I set off there before work. The line was still quite short early in the morning, and I even got some entertainment because the elderly gentleman in front of me in the line loudly protested that the charlatan Trump had not released his tax returns.
What I actually wanted to say is that even people who don't have papers, meaning those who are in the USA illegally, file tax returns. How does that work? Since you can't get a Social Security number in the USA without official papers (although some undocumented individuals obtain one on the black market), and since this number also serves as a tax number, the American tax office issues tax numbers ("Individual Taxpayer Identification Number," or ITIN for short) for people without Social Security numbers. Even people who are legally in the country and hold certain visas do not necessarily receive a Social Security number, but they still have to pay taxes and file tax returns, and they also receive an individual tax number.
In the USA, it's not so much the immigration status that matters when it comes to paying taxes, but rather whether the immigrant has been in the country for more than 183 days. But why do people who are in the country illegally even voluntarily file a tax return? For one, these individuals often receive tax refunds because they tend to earn in the lower income bracket. Here's how it works: An undocumented immigrant works for a company under a false Social Security number, under which the company withholds taxes and submits them to the IRS. The number belongs to a legitimate citizen who is unaware of this. When the undocumented immigrant files a tax return with their ITIN number, they include the earnings statement with the false Social Security number. The IRS notices this, of course, The translation to English is: "butoperates special software ... which firstly ignores the discrepancy and secondly ensures that the rightful owner of the social security number is spared and does not have to pay taxes on the income of the illegal person.
Many undocumented immigrants hope that by paying taxes, they might eventually obtain legal status, for example, through an amnesty, because they have adhered to the country's laws and contributed to the system. According to the American tax authority, in 2016, 4.5 million people filed tax returns using an ITIN instead of a Social Security number, although it is unclear how many of them had valid papers, as the tax office does not inquire about this. However, Trump has since frightened many undocumented immigrants, and this year, for the first time, there has been a decline in tax returns filed with an ITIN. The tax office is not allowed to share the gathered details with other authorities.