I was reading in today’s Washington Post how Donald Trump’s New York golf club fired a large number of illegal aliens on January 18 following last year’s New York Times expose on the employment of illegal aliens at a New Jersey golf club owned by Trump.
My first reaction to the article was similar to my reaction to last year’s publication, namely being incensed at the gross hypocrisy of our president who condemns employers for hiring illegal aliens while allowing his own enterprises to do exactly that. But after a little thought, something else occurred to me that I have never seen discussed regarding any investigation into the employment of illegal aliens.
As all of us who have ever worked for employers are intimately aware of the requirements for all employers to withhold income taxes, Social Security payments and Medicare payments from the pay of all employees and to submit those payments to the IRS each fiscal quarter. So the question that came to mind was, what happened to the payments that were collected from illegal employees? Over a period of time, the IRS and/or the Social Security Administration would have recognized that there was no such person for whom the payments were submitted and, at the very least, would have notified the employer. That they didn’t implies that the employer didn’t submit the payments. So what happened to the money? Now I don’t know for certain that the employers were stealing the money; they may have turned it in to the IRS and the IRS may have kept it. However, it is certain that the money didn’t go to credit the Social Security accounts of the employees and it had to go somewhere, so where is it now?
It’s one thing to be incensed about the illegality of hiring undocumented employees while complaining about employers hiring undocumented employees, but stealing the money collected for taxes, Social Security and Medicare payments from those employees is an order of magnitude worse. And that they might be doing so from people whom they are exploiting by paying near slave wages is evil beyond my ability to articulate.
So, as the title for this post implies, I wrote another letter to my Congressman which I am including for your perusal. I hope it gives you some ideas for what you might want to do or say about the subject and to whom you might want to address the issue.
Mr. Don Beyer
Representative, 8th Congressional District of Virginia
Sir:
In today’s Post it was reported that a large number of illegals were fired on from Donald Trump’s NY golf club on 18 January and that several of them had been working there for as much as 15 years. There was included in the article a photograph of one of the workers holding 14 years worth of pay stubs.
Now it is required by law for all employers to withhold federal and state income taxes, Social Security payments and Medicare payments from every employee’s wages and to submit those funds to the IRS and state treasury every fiscal quarter. Given that the illegals were using falsified documents, the false social security numbers would have been detected by the IRS and/or the Social Security Administration and reported back to the employer. That the employment of these illegals went on as long as it did implies that the employer failed to submit the payments to the IRS as required by law and instead, kept the funds and/or used them for other purposes. That would be embezzlement.
I don’t know the number of illegals employed by Trump’s golf club or how long each had been employed or what their individual wages were, but it is safe to surmise that the total amount of taxes, Social Security and Medicare payments for a large number of employees over a period of many years amounts to millions of dollars.
My question is, where did the money go?
I sincerely hope that investigations into the employment of illegals at Trump’s golf clubs (hotels and other establishments) includes investigating the disposition of moneys for the payment of taxes, Social Security and Medicare payments withheld from the paychecks of the illegals.
Therefore, I am asking you to inquire whether or not investigations on the employment of illegals has included questions on the disposition of moneys collected for tax, Social Security and Medicare payments, and if not, to ensure that the investigations are expanded to include such.
Respectfully,
W. R. Knight