Trump Wants to Use the IRS to Track Down Immigrants. They May Stop Paying Taxes. | Undocumented immigrants contribute billions to Social Security and other programs. That money might fall off because of Trump’s crackdown.

Extract:

>IMMIGRANTS IN THE COUNTRY ILLEGALLY paid nearly $100 billion in taxes in 2022, according to a report by the [Institute on Taxation and Economic policy](https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/).

>But that source of government revenue may soon taper off as the Trump administration pushes the Internal Revenue Service to help it accelerate its program of mass deportations.

>The [*Washington Post*](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/28/immigration-enforcement-trump-administration-irs/) reported Friday that the IRS rejected a request from Homeland Security to reveal the addresses of 700,000 people the agency suspects of being undocumented, an action that could violate taxpayer privacy laws. But the *Post* went on to report the new acting IRS commissioner Melanie Krause is (surprise) more amenable to complying with the request to turn over the taxpayer data of immigrants.

>The result, experts say, is not just that tax data will be morphed into a cudgel for the immigration fights. People are also now becoming too scared to file their taxes. One immigration lawyer told me they suspect the number of people forgoing those filings will only rise as the *Washington Post* report hits Spanish-language media.

>Tax professionals and immigration advocates in areas with large immigrant populations who spoke to *The Bulwark* said they are already feeling the effects. And it’s not just tax filings—it’s the shriveling of small businesses with ties to the community. In Nevada, which has the [third-highest](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/state-state-estimates-family-members-unauthorized-immigrants/) rate among states of mixed-status families—where at least one family member is undocumented—an employee at Toro Taxes in Las Vegas, where their clientele is 95 percent Latino, said overall business has dropped a stunning 25 percent from last year.

looking for MS13 criminals who also believe in paying taxes.

The rest of us might stop too. If you have no confidence in funds being spent as duly appropriated by Congress, no confidence that they’re not being illegally diverted to line Musk’s pockets, and no confidence that you’ll receive the refund you are owed from an IRS slashed to the bone (or get caught), why would you pay federal taxes under this administration?