Aug 19, 2013

No Punishment For Aiding And Abetting Illegal Aliens

     From an audit report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) (footnotes omitted, emphasis added):
Because the Social Security Administration (SSA) calculates future benefit payments based on the earnings an individual has accumulated over his/her lifetime, it is critical that the Agency accurately record those earnings. SSA’s ability to do so, however, depends, in part, on employers and employees correctly reporting names and Social Security numbers (SSN) on Forms W-2, Wage and Tax Statement. SSA uses automated edits to match employees’ names and SSNs with Agency records to ensure it properly credits earnings to the Master Earnings File. SSA places wage items that fail to match name and SSN records in its Earnings Suspense File (ESF). ...
[W]e obtained ESF data for TYs [Tax Years] 2007 through 2009. These data represented the most complete tax data available at the start of our audit, given the inherent lag in posting annual wage information. We then identified the 100 employers who contributed the most wage items to the ESF for the 3-year period. We also identified the 100 employers (with a minimum of 100 employees)who had the highest percentage of suspended wage items for TYs 2007 through 2009. For the 200 employers selected, we analyzed ESF data to identify reporting irregularities, such as SSNs that SSA either had never issued or assigned to another individual. We also contacted Employer Service Liaison Officers (ESLO) to obtain information on their experiences with employers who provided names and/or SSNs that did not match SSA’s records. ...
For TYs 2007 through 2009, the 100 employers who had the most suspended wage items had submitted over 2.3 million wage items for which the employees’ names and/or SSNs did not match SSA’s records. These wage items represented $15.7 billion in suspended earnings over the 3-year period. In total, 18 percent of the wage items these employers submitted did not match names/SSNs in SSA’s files. ...
In previous reports, SSA acknowledged unauthorized noncitizens’ intentional misuse of SSNs has been a major contributor to the ESF’s growth. SSA staff told us employers hired unauthorized workers because nothing prevented them from doing so. That is, employers know SSA had no legal authority to levy fines and penalties, and they were not concerned about potential IRS sanctions. Several of the employers and industry associations we contacted acknowledged that unauthorized noncitizens contributed to SSN misuse. For example, one employer told us his and many restaurants would close if they did not hire unauthorized noncitizens. A temporary labor service employer acknowledged that some of his former employees were unauthorized noncitizens who used invalid, unassigned, and deceased individuals’ SSNs. Furthermore, the president of a large growers’ association stated that farm labor contractors employed a large number of unauthorized noncitizens.
     The offending employers are not named in the audit report.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Again, shocked by this article. If you listen to the left, fraud doesn't exist. I can believe anyone would be dishonest in America.

Anonymous said...

What we have here is an example of a traditional GOP audience (business) knowingly violating the law. Have not seen, in the recent immigration "discussion" any mention of cracking down on such businesses. Plenty cracking down on the workers themselves, but nothing on the effectuators, the employers. My son had his SSN (not name, just SSN) appropriated by an employee of an agricultural business in California notorious for both shady employment practices as well as running "slums" for housing their workers. I called and asked them to "fix" the mistake, lest I contact people to do so more officially and what do you know, no more appropriation of his SSN. And if you believe that the employer fired that worker, I have a bridge to see you. They are just now abusing someone elses's SSN. Cause and effect my friend, these people wouldn't be doing this if the employer didn't look the other way because they want cheap labor. Stop the employer, stop the SSN fraud and immigration fraud.

Anonymous said...

Obama himself is aiding and abetting illegal aliens by ordering DHS and ICE to not enforce portions of immigration law so that he can construct his own version of amnesty, under which SSA employees themselves have to issue SSN's to illegal aliens. Why should employers now be held responsible at all?

Anonymous said...

Executive Orders are not Fraud or aiding and abetting, it's well within any POTUS power.

Anonymous said...

I think we should find the SSN's of these CEO's and the board of directors and sell them to the crooks who create false identities.

Just goes to show that the rule of law when it comes to immigration doesn't mean much to the right or the left.

Anonymous said...

The POTUS does not have the legal "power" to tell govt employees to disregard the laws they are supposed to enforce, but that is all that this one has been doing. So why should employers be singled out for punishment?

Unknown said...

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