News

Identity Crisis

Having your Social Security number stolen makes for a taxing situation.

By Gustavo Arellano 

Dear Mexican: On my desk is a levy from the Internal Revenue Service for over $12,000 in unpaid taxes. Turns out some dude used my Social Security number for two years in Albuquerque and didn't bother to pay taxes. It's taken me plenty in time and attorney's fees to figure it out, and we're still fighting with the feds so that I can continue to get paid for doing my job. If the number of 12 million illegals getting thrown around is real, it's a safe bet that I am not alone. Stealing ID numbers is a widely unreported crime that does have victims. As a card-carrying liberal whose grandfather was a Mexican immigrant, my feelings are pretty mixed. What are your thoughts on this?
I'm Really Sad

Dear IRS: Thoughts on what? Identity fraud? Muy bad. Unpaid taxes? Even worse. And when illegal immigrants do it to wabs like you? Chingao, the Mexican gets his chonis in a bunch. It's one thing to use someone's identity with his permission — as I'm currently doing gracias to a generous pendejo — but quite another to screw over an unwitting individual. But the most infuriating thing about this situation? Ultimately, the government wins. Even if an illegal immigrant doesn't file his or ella's taxes, the government still takes out Social Security and Medicare impuestos that neither the offending illegal nor the SSN's rightful owner can claim without wrapping themselves in bureaucratic red tape. Rather than immediately investigate most discrepancies, the Social Security Administration dumps the money into something called an "earning suspense file" and lets it subsidize the current Social Security pool to the tune of more than $7 billion annually. Coffin-dodging gabachos should be grateful for the illegals' infusion, but let's not kid ourselves: Rather than revile people so desperate for a better life that they break numerous laws for that chance, shouldn't we criticize the system that makes it so damn easy to do it? By the way, the Federal Trade Commission estimates that the number of identity-theft victims has gone down despite the illegal alien invasion of the past couple of years, from nearly 10 million cases in 2002 to 8.3 million in 2005 to 8.1 million last year.

Dear Mexican: I understand that Dallas spent several million dollars for a Latino cultural center and is now considering an Asian cultural center. Please explain why the city is spending money on things like this instead of hiring more police and firepeople with names like Gonzalez and Chen.
The Leprechaun

Dear Mick: I'm with you that city officials should spend taxpayer money primarily on infrastructure and services, but the way you and other gabachos whine about ethnic studies and cultural centers being exclusionary is mystifying. Mira, the only reason that Mexicans, chinitos, negritos and every other aggrieved minority group in this country demand recognition for their cultural contributions is because they went a good two centuries being treated as Sambos, chinks and beaners. Besides, cultural institutes are manifestations of what the legendary Columbia sociologist Herbert Gans deemed symbolic ethnicity: the idea that America's ethnics eventually become assimilated and choose what parts of their heritage to celebrate.