Jesus, yes I believe everything I vet through sources that are more credible than a bald assumption from some moron on the internet.
How exactly do you think employers reconcile their federal taxes without reporting all laborers? If they don't report a SSN, fake or stolen, they get busted for tax evasion and it's too expensive for some employers to verify the identity of all employees, especially if they are working under the name on the SSN.
If you don't believe that 8 million of 12 million pay federal and state income tax, check Forbes. Is Forbes credible enough of a source for you, shit for brains? How about the SSA?
https://www.socialsecurity.gov/oact/NOTES/pdf_notes/note151.pdf
Did you ever read those analyses?
I was curious in the past about these claims, and read the reports. They are premised on a hilarious concatenation of data-free assumptions, few of which are plausible. Quoting from that article, as an example:
"OCACT assumes that other immigrants are as likely to work as legal permanent residents of the same age and sex. The estimated number of other immigrants working is 8.3 million in 2010. OCACT estimates 0.6 million of the 8.3 million other immigrant workers in 2010 had temporary work authorized at some point in the past and have overstayed the term of their visas. In addition, OCACT estimates that 0.7 million unauthorized workers in 2010 obtained fraudulent birth certificates at some point in the past and these birth certificates allowed the workers to get an SSN. Combining these two groups with the 1.3 million current visa holders with temporary authorization, we estimate 2.7 million other immigrants have SSNs in their name and thus can work, pay taxes, and have earnings credited to their record for potential benefits in the future. OCACT estimates 1.8 million other immigrants worked and used an SSN that did not match their name in 2010. Their earnings may be credited to someone else’s record (when the SSN and name submitted to the employer match Social Security records) or may be credited to the Earnings Suspense File (when submitted with non-matching SSN and name). Finally, OCACT estimates 3.9 million other immigrants worked in the underground economy in 2010."
These figures are routinely presented as some sort of hard data, when in reality you might as well throw darts at a board. And then you ask what amount of benefits are paid out, and the random guessing intensifies even further. Again, from that same article:
"Estimating the portion of all 2010 OASDI benefit payments that will be based on prior unauthorized earnings is even more problematic than estimating current unauthorized earnings. In general, we believe that the evidence indicates a relatively small portion of those who potentially could draw benefits do so. The principal category of unauthorized immigrants who can currently draw a Social Security benefit includes those who have overstayed visas, or obtained an SSN through illegitimate means. For January 1, 2010, we estimate that there were 720 thousand other immigrants aged 62 and over. Assuming: (1) about 25 percent of these immigrants meet the insured requirements and have a functional SSN matching their name; and (2) they have a monthly benefit level about half the average, we estimate about 180 thousand beneficiaries received roughly $1 billion in benefits in 2010."
Two things. At almost every level the gov'ts figures are jimmied towards making repeated unsupported assumptions that help establish that (a) they aren't throwing tons of money away; and (b) illegal immigrants aren't massively tax dodging, but rather pay taxes at a rate that should be assumed equivalent, except where proven otherwise.
Let me give a final example, from your own post, of how utterly fuck-tarded and detached from reality the government's proclamations are on this subject.
"Question: Of the unauthorized workers paying OASDI taxes, what is the average level of earnings upon which the taxes are levied and how does that level compare with the broader U.S. labor force?
Response: We assume the average level of taxable earnings for these unauthorized workers equals about 80 percent of the average level for all workers. For 2010, we estimate this average level for these unauthorized workers to be about $34,000."
Really? You assume *80%* is the differential? Even setting aside the random quasi-magical out-of-a-hat guesswork status of this percentage, 80% *earned* is laughably high relative to what one would expect for legal workers, and then you have to ask what is actually *reported* of that illegal v. legal income, relative to actually earned, and here again the gov't consistently assumes it is the same reporting ratio ("why not? are you saying illegal workers are any less likely to report their income? That's prejudiced!"), which makes one weep enormous tears of laughter if one has any familiarity with how such income is actually reported. You might as well assume that all those family-owned urban restaurants are accurately reporting all their income; this kind of willful stupidity exceeds criminal status, it achieves 'governmental' status.