Improving Immigration Benefit Decisions and Tax Compliance
GAO found that as of December 2003, businesses applying to sponsor immigrants had $3.7 billion in delinquent taxes and were not taking steps to pay or otherwise resolve their tax delinquencies. To improve taxpayer compliance, as well as immigration benefit decisions by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services' (USCIS), Congress should
- consider changing immigration eligibility standards by requiring businesses applying to sponsor immigrant workers to meet tax filing and payment obligations; and
- consider charging a user fee to businesses that are not in compliance with their tax obligations, to cover the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) costs of bringing the businesses into compliance.
GAO recommends that if Congress does not require businesses to meet their tax filing and payment obligations, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
- direct USCIS, in consultation with IRS, to conduct a pilot data-sharing test. In the test, USCIS should require a tax compliance check for selected businesses and other entities applying to sponsor immigrant workers before qualifying for immigration benefits.
No legislative changes have been made. IRS and USCIS worked on the design of a pilot test for data sharing, but the pilot test has not yet occurred.
^ Back to topKey Reports
- Taxpayer Information: Options Exist to Enable Data Sharing Between IRS and USCIS but Each Presents Challenges
- GAO-06-100, October 11, 2005
- Summary (HTML) Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 66 pages) Accessible Text Recommendations (HTML)
