The Obama Administration is continuing to offer taxpayer-funded goodies to men, women and children who violate U.S. law by entering the country illegally, with little worry about legislative or judicial repercussions.

As reported by The Weekly Standard, in recent weeks President Obama has framed his recent executive actions on immigration as a means of only deferring action, as in, holding off on enforcing immigration laws until an immigration reform measure he likes can pass Congress. But it turns out that’s not really the case at all.

In fact, as newly elected U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., notes, there is a way that illegal immigrants can immediately receive what he is terming “amnesty bonuses.”

The Weekly Standard notes:

Here’s how. A recent Homeland Security Committee hearing on immigration revealed an alarming consequence of President Obama’s executive amnesty–that illegal immigrants with deferred status may be able to receive the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Moreover, this person, who is here in the U.S. unlawfully, could be able to file an amended tax return for up to the last three tax years, possibly receiving upwards of $24,000 in tax credits.

Keep in mind two things: a) These people have no legal right to even be in the United States; and b) as president, Obama took an oath to uphold the laws of the country — not give away taxpayer money to illegal residents.

The EITC loophole was discovered by Eileen J. O’Connor, a tax lawyer and former chief of the tax division at the Justice Department. She used recent congressional testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee to lay it all out.

Another loopy loophole finding that burns taxpayers

“The law makes a social security number a requirement of eligibility to receive the earned income credit,” O’Connor said.

“But in 1999, the Chief Counsel’s office of IRS ruled (in a non-binding, non-precedential way, but no one but the IRS pays attention to those disclaimers) that when a person receives a social security number, he can file amended returns to claim the credit for the three preceding years during which he did not. The logic is puzzling: the credit is not available if you don’t have a social security number, but you can receive it retroactively for years during which you did not qualify for it because you didn’t have a social security number.”

It is a stunning, yet typical, development- – the federal government playing fast and loose with taxpayers.

Sasse teamed up with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, have penned a letter to the inspector general of the U.S. Treasury Department seeking an inquiry. Sasse has also released a statement regarding this egregious violation of the public trust, in which he commented on the “amnesty bonuses.”

“By offering illegal aliens new payments under the Earned Income Tax Credit, the IRS may encourage fraud from those claiming children living in other countries. The Administration may have blown open the doors for fraud with amnesty bonuses of more than $24,000 to those who receive deferred action,” he said in his statement.

“This is basic economics: if you want more of something, you subsidize it. By subsidizing illegal entry with four years’ worth of new tax credits, the IRS would promote lawlessness,” he continued. “This program severely undermines the White House’s lip-service to enforcing the law and would increase the burden on law-abiding taxpayers.”

“Billions“ at stake

Johnson, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, also decried the loophole and echoed Sasse’s concerns.

“Non-U.S. citizens who qualify for President Obama’s temporary deferred actions will now be eligible to receive permanent Social Security numbers,” he said in a separate statement. “A Social Security number is the key that opens a whole treasure chest of benefits, including significant tax credits.”

Continuing, Johnson said: “Most notably, qualifying applicants for the president’s programs can now claim thousands — even tens of thousands — of dollars in payments from the Earned Income Tax Credit and, for some, the Additional Child Tax Credit. These two programs, which cost taxpayers $89.6 billion in 2013, were responsible for $21 billion in improper, potentially fraudulent payments that same year. Americans deserve to know where their taxpayer dollars are being spent and whether the Internal Revenue Service is failing to protect them from improper payments.”

As of this writing, the U.S. National Debt is $18.13 trillion; the amount of unfunded liabilities (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Obamacare) is over $95 trillion — or more money than five years’ worth of the entire U.S. gross domestic product.

http://www.naturalnews.com/048810_illegal_immigrants_IRS_tax_credits.html