TAX EQUALITY FOR IMMIGRANTS AND CHILD POVERTY

Please join the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) and co-sponsors, the Price Center for Social Innovation at the University of Southern California and NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, for a webinar and discussion of the Journal on Migration and Human Security report, “Tax Equality for Immigrants: The Indispensable Ingredient for Remedying Child Poverty in the United States.”

The report examines the unequal treatment of citizens and non-citizens in the US tax system and how it impacts the plans to combat child poverty which are now under debate in Congress. Immigrants, chiefly the unauthorized, who do not qualify for a Social Security Number are required to pay taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), but their access to tax credits is limited by eligibility exclusions and bureaucratic barriers. Substantial expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit are critical to the ambitious initiative to halve child poverty that the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats are pursuing through budget reconciliation. The report shows the initiatives will leave behind about one of every five children in poverty. Nearly 2 million children – 1.6 million US citizens and 270,000 non-citizens – are living in poverty yet are ineligible for the poverty-fighting tax credits because they have at least one undocumented parent. In a positive development, seven states recently have extended state EITC programs to ITIN filers, and others are debating similar measures. The paper proposes a full agenda of actions government and civil society actors could take to provide tax equality to immigrants.

The report’s authors, Roberto Suro and Hannah Findling, will share key findings and policy recommendations. 

REGISTER

This free, virtual event is open to students, researchers, and practitioners of all disciplines. Advance registration is required.

KJ