Immigrants Pay Fair Share, Study Finds
Feature Story by Katherine Scully - 6/16/2006
A new study suggests that immigrants, both legal and undocumented, pay taxes at the same rate as native-born Americans. On Monday, June 5, The Community Foundation released a study that analyses immigrant tax-payments in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.The study offered a different perspective from the ongoing national debate on immigration policy. According to Audrey Singer, a panelist at the report's release and a scholar at the Brookings Institution, the report showed "in concrete terms, dollar terms, how immigrants contribute to our communities."
The study found that the immigrant community pays its fair share in taxes, despite rhetoric from anti-immigrant groups that maintain that immigrants drain the nation's resources. Ana Gutierrez, another panelist and a Maryland Delegate, said, "When you hear people say 'they pay no taxes,' at least ask them to read this report."
Kathy Whelpley, senior vice president for the Community Foundation, hailed the study's findings as, "a portrait of hardworking individuals, a portrait that contradicts many of the stereotypes that we see and hear daily on the news and from politicians."
Immigrants in the Washington, DC metropolitan area paid almost 10 billion dollars in taxes in 1999, or roughly 18 percent of all taxes collected from area residents. Researchers said that the figure actually underestimates current figures because the Washington metropolitan area's immigrant population has increased 21 percent (1 million people) since 1999.
The study also found that households headed by naturalized citizens paid exactly the same amount in taxes as households headed by native-born citizens.
Researchers said they focused on the diversity of the Washington metropolitan area's immigrant population and studied the effect that country of origin, education level, naturalization status, and English competency had on immigrants' income and tax contribution. Metropolitan Washington has the fourth largest immigrant community in the United States and no one country of origin comprises more than 13 percent of the area's immigrants.
Panelist Tom Perez lauded the study's emphasis on diversity. He said, "If you are going to report on the immigrant experience, report on the entirety of the immigrant experience in the DC metropolitan area."
Researchers found that both immigrants and native-born residents with the same level of education made similar incomes and paid similar taxes. However, immigrant households with no high school degree actually contributed more in taxes annually than did native-born households with no high-school degree.
In addition, as English proficiency increased, immigrant income increased, with fluent English-speaking immigrants earning almost 10 percent more annually than do native-born residents.
The report made several recommendations including: continuing to welcome immigrants since the region would profit from the increased tax revenue; supporting the expansion of the biotechnology and telecommunications sectors of the economy; allowing time for immigrants to become fully integrated; offering adult education and English as a second language classes; and granting temporary or permanent work authorizations to undocumented workers.
The study's findings come as a deeply divided Congress struggles to broker a compromise on a final comprehensive immigration reform bill. Observers believe that a compromise between the two chambers is unlikely because both sides refuse to back down.
Michael Fix of the Migration Policy Institute, one of the researchers on the study, said that with the presentation of the study's findings, "The political stakes of this issue have never been higher."
