Problem is with those evading taxes

In regard to John Rouille's letter (Feb 23), "American citizens getting squeezed," the record needs to be set straight.

The writer characterizes "immigrants, legal or not" as "non-taxpaying workers." This is fiction. I can assure Mr. Rouille that all employees of American businesses, citizen or immigrant, legal or illegal, pay taxes, have them withheld by the employer and sent to the tax authorities. Some independent contractors, citizen or immigrant, legal or illegal, choose not to submit W-9 forms to their employers, who choose not to declare their incomes on Form 1096 to be sent to the tax authorities. This constitutes tax evasion, which is illegal, on the part of both the taxpayer and the employer, and it is by no means the exclusive province of immigrants.

Finally, all citizens and immigrants, legal or illegal, pay sales tax, gas tax, tobacco tax, car licenses and tolls as well as property tax (often indirectly, by paying rent to a landlord who uses part of the rent to pay the actual tax). Whatever portion of the GNP that thus escapes taxation is small, compared to what is not paid: (1) by American-owned and operated corporations which are incorporated in tax havens such as the Bahamas or the Cayman islands, (2) by those who are rich enough to afford a tax lawyer to find loopholes in the tax code, and (3) by professional criminals - mobsters and drug lords for example - who pay taxes on some part of their revenue, in order to avoid the fate of Al Capone, but who do not declare all their illicit gains.

If John Rouille wants to continue to bash immigrants, let him do so on the basis that they increase the balance of payments deficit by sending money to their home countries, but don't forget that immigrants are the major source of growth of the U.S. population and that they therefore boost the economy, corporate profits and total tax revenue.

Per Flaatten

Warrenville