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The Trump administration this week reportedly classified thousands of immigrants living in the United States as dead in a Social Security database in an effort to force them out of the country, a scheme that was met with furious uproar from advocates and lawmakers.

By entering the names and Social Security numbers of roughly 6,000 immigrants into Social Security's "death master file," the administration has revoked their ability to legally work in the U.S. and receive benefits in a bid to get them to "self-deport," several news outlets reported Thursday.

"This is an outrageous abuse of power," Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works, said in a statement. "It will not only create extreme hardship, but kill people. Imagine, in one Trump administration keystroke, losing your income, your health insurance, access to your bank account, your credit cards, your home, and more."

"If they get away with this, it would be no surprise if they then move on to marking their perceived enemies as dead—citizens and non-citizens alike," Altman added. "This is a total misuse of the dedicated revenue that workers contribute to Social Security, with every paycheck. Though Trump claimed he wouldn't cut benefits, he essentially is by diverting dedicated monies from their intended purpose of paying Social Security benefits to the immoral purpose of maliciously ruining lives."

"The Trump administration's weaponization of Social Security is shocking and unconscionable, and we expect House Republicans will remain silent."

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The Washington Postreported that the classification of thousands of immigrants as "dead" came at the request of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who—in tandem with other administration officials—is trampling basic rights as she moves to carry out Trump's mass deportation agenda.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, called the Trump administration's scheme "utterly unprecedented" and warned that it "has the potential to cause immense problems for people."

"And it's also one with a HUGE potential for error," he wrote on social media. "If the data isn't perfect, people here legally might be effectively declared dead."

According to the Post, "among the people being targeted are immigrants who have bona fide Social Security numbers but have lost their legal status in the U.S., such as those who entered under one of the Biden administration's temporary work programs that have since ended."

"The immigrants' names were placed in the database following two memorandums of agreement signed Monday by Noem and Leland Dudek, the acting Social Security commissioner," the Post reported. "The memos authorize Social Security to place the immigrants in the death file for national security reasons and under the Social Security Act."

The New York Timesreported that the "initial names" added to Social Security's death file "are convicted criminals and 'suspected terrorists,'" according to internal administration documents, "but officials said the effort could broaden to include others in the country without authorization."

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that undocumented immigrants paid roughly $26 billion in Social Security taxes in 2022.

Dudek, who has presided over a large-scale assault on the Social Security Administration (SSA) since Trump installed him to lead the agency in February, wrote in an email to staff that the "financial lives" of the immigrants added to the death file would be "terminated," according to the Times. SSA is also reportedly sharing sensitive personal information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Dudek recently faced calls to resign after internal emails revealed that SSA terminated contracts with the state of Maine in what one Democratic lawmaker called "direct retaliation for statements made by Maine Governor Janet Mills that upset President Donald Trump."

The acting SSA leader's plans for the agency, including mass staffing cuts and field office closures that advocates say amount to benefit cuts, have drawn widespread outrage. The Timesreported earlier this week that "thousands of worried and frustrated recipients have thronged local field offices, asking why the phone lines are jammed, whether their local offices will be closed by Elon Musk's team of software engineers and technology executives, and whether they will lose their benefits."

"Waves of buyouts and early retirements have hobbled the staff at many local offices," the newspaper added, "and recipients say it has become harder to use the agency's website and phone systems, or even be seen in person."

Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.) issued a joint statement Thursday condemning the Trump administration's latest weaponization of SSA as "digital murder" that "will make life exponentially harder for these victims, who could be effectively forced out of this country if their Social Security numbers are terminated."

"If they cancel the Social Security number of one person, where do they stop?" the lawmakers asked. "The Trump administration's weaponization of Social Security is shocking and unconscionable, and we expect House Republicans will remain silent. If you care about Social Security, you need to raise your voice because, despite what he says, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are the biggest threat to people and their earned benefits."

NOW READ:Is this the moment American democracy finally broke?

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pat mill 12 24

Unfortunately, Democrats chose to reappoint Rep. Richie Neal as Ranking Member on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over our tax code and will be front and center in next year’s tax fight.

Just before Thanksgiving, POLITICO reported his son, Brendan Neal, worked as a lobbyist on issues before his father’s committee. These same businesses went on to secure direct wins through Rep. Neal’s legislation, including tax deductions for trial lawyers and tax breaks for specific insurance contracts.

This isn’t the first time Rep. Neal has seemingly taken part in a pay-to-play scheme. As far back as 2019, Rep. Neal was questioned for wining and dining wealthy donors who had business before the Ways and Means Committee.^[1] There definitely seems to be a pattern here.

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The desperate need in this country coupled with skyrocketing levels of wealth concentration requires bold action. Refusing to address this inequality is counter to everything the Democratic Party claims to stand for and is, frankly, at this moment in history, un-American.

The President of the United States, who is also the head of the Democratic Party, has called for $3.5 trillion worth of investments and new revenues to match those expenditures. We hope and expect members of the President’s party to support his agenda in its entirety.

The following Democrats have refused to support the President’s agenda and are actively working to maintain preferential treatment for millionaires, billionaires and corporations:

U.S. SENATE DEMOCRATS

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV)

Email using this link!

Or call: 202-224-3954

Manchin wants to begin with rolling back the TCJA and moving from there.

SEN. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-AZ)

Email using this link!

Or call: 202-224-4521

Sinema refuses to state what problems she has with the bill and what size package she would vote for. She has met with President Biden several times with no immediate action steps.

U.S. HOUSE DEMOCRATS

REP. RICHARD NEAL (D-MA), Chair of House Ways and Means

Email using this link!

Or call: (202) 225-5601

Neal has neglected to put a strong revenue-raising package together through taxes exclusively on millionaires, billionaires, and corporations, despite the majority of the Ways and Means committee being in favor of such a plan.

REP. CAROLYN BOURDEAUX (D-GA)

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Or call: 202-225-4272

Bourdeaux has concerns about the elimination of the stepped-up basis. She is more supportive than she lets on publicly though.

REP. ED CASE (D-HI)

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Or call: 202-225-2726

Case is worried about eliminating the stepped-up basis loophole and does not want to tax unrealized capital gains.

REP. LOU CORREA (D-CA)

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Or call: 202 225-2965

Congressman Correa says we need to “pause” efforts to ensure multinational corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

REP. JIM COSTA (D-CA)

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Or call: 202-225-3341

Costa won’t support regressive tax increases and is concerned about inflation. He is fearful of voting for a bill that will die in the Senate.

REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D-TX)

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Or call: 202-225-3341

Cuellar has said he does not want to vote for bill that will fail in the Senate. He is also unhappy with the targeting of oil and natural gas industries in the bill.

REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ)

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Or call: 202-225-4465

Gottheimer mostly wants to make sure BIF gets passed, and passes before the larger reconciliation package. He insists on only passing a bill that will also pass cleanly in the Senate. He also wants to see SALT amended in reconciliation.

REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL)

Email using this link!

Or call: 202 225-4035

Murphy has issues with raising taxes. She wants to tackle climate change but doesn’t think we need to change taxes to do it. She toes a complicated line between being ‘fiscally responsible’ and focused on ‘tax fairness,’ yet she somehow doesn’t support amending our tax structure. She will not vote for a bill that is not agreed upon with the Senate.

REP. TOM O’HALLERAN (D-AZ)

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Or call: 202-225-3361

Congressman O’Halleran says we need to “pause” efforts to ensure multinational corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

REP. SCOTT PETERS (D-CA)

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Or call: 202-225-0508

Scott Peters voted against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, which would immediately lower drug prices for seniors. He has intimated that he may be a “no” on the entire package.

REP. KATHLEEN RICE (D-NY)

Email using this link!

Or call: (202) 225-5516

Rice voted against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, which would immediately lower drug prices for seniors. 90% of her constituents and 80% of all Americans support allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Approximately 100% of Pharmaceutical companies do not support allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, on the other hand, and they give campaign contributions to politicians who support their position.

REP. KURT SCHRADER (D-OR)

Email using this link!

Or call: 202-225-5711

Schrader says the reconciliation number is too high, and he won’t support it unless it’s under $1 trillion. He is one of the votes we are most likely to lose in the House.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/erik-prince/

Series: The Secret IRS Files

Inside the Tax Records of the .001%

It's well known, at least among tax lawyers and accountants for the ultrawealthy: The estate tax can be easily avoided by exploiting a loophole unwittingly created by Congress three decades ago. By using special trusts, a rarefied group of Americans has taken advantage of this loophole, reducing government revenues and fueling inequality.

There is no way for the public to know who uses these special trusts aside from when they've been disclosed in lawsuits or securities filings. There's also been no way to quantify just how much in estate tax has been lost to them, though, in 2013, the lawyer who pioneered the use of the most common one — known as thegrantor retained annuity trust, or GRAT — estimated they may have cost the U.S. Treasury about $100 billion over the prior 13 years.

As Congress considers cracking down on GRATs and other trusts to help fund President Joe Biden's domestic agenda, a new analysis by ProPublica based on a trove of tax information about thousands of the wealthiest Americans sheds light on just how widespread the use of special trusts to dodge the estate tax has become.

More than half of the nation's 100 richest individuals have used GRATs and other trusts to avoid estate tax, the analysis shows. Among them: former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg; Leonard Lauder, the son of cosmetics magnate Estée Lauder; Stephen Schwarzman, a founder of the private equity firm Blackstone; Charles Koch and his late brother, David, the industrialists who have underwritten libertarian causes and funded lobbying efforts to roll back the estate tax; and Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs.(Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective is among ProPublica's largest donors.)

More than a century ago amid soaring inequality and the rise of stratospherically wealthy families such as the Mellons and Rockefellers, Congress created the estate tax as a way to raise money and clip the fortunes of the rich at death. Lawmakers later added a gift tax as a means of stopping wealthy people from passing their fortunes on to their children and grandchildren before death. Nowadays, 99.9% of Americans never have to worry about these taxes. They only hit individuals passing more than $11.7 million, or couples giving more than $23.4 million, to their heirs. The federal government imposes a roughly 40% levy on amounts above those figures before that wealth is passed on to heirs.

For her part, Powell Jobs has decried as “dangerous for a society" the early 20th century fortunes of the Mellons, Rockefellers and others. “I'm not interested in legacy wealth buildings, and my children know that," she told The New York Times last year. “Steve wasn't interested in that. If I live long enough, it ends with me."

Nonetheless, after the death of her husband in 2011, Powell Jobs used a series of GRATs to pass on around a half a billion dollars, estate-tax-free, to her children, friends and other family, according to the tax records and interviews with her longtime attorney. By using the GRATs, she avoided at least $200 million in estate and gift taxes.

Her attorney, Larry Sonsini, said Powell Jobs did this so that her children would have cash to pay estate taxes when she dies and they inherit “nostalgic and hard assets," such as real estate, art and a yacht. (At 260 feet, Venus is among the larger pleasure ships in the world.) Without the $500 million or so passed through the trusts, he said, Powell Jobs' heirs would have to sell stock that she intends to give to charity to pay her estate tax bill.

Sonsini said Powell Jobs, whose fortune is pegged at $21 billion by Forbes, has already given billions away to charity and paid $2.5 billion in state and federal taxes between 2012 and 2020. “When you look at an estate that may be worth multiple billions, and all the rest is going to charity, and you put it in perspective, what is the problem we're worried about here?" Sonsini asked. “This is not about creating dynasty wealth for these kids."

In a written statement, Powell Jobs said she supports “reforms that make the tax code more fair. Through my work at Emerson Collective and philanthropic commitments, I have dedicated my life and assets to the pursuit of a more just and equitable society."

Others whose special trusts ProPublica identified, including Bloomberg and the Kochs,declined to comment on why they'd set up the trusts or their estate-tax implications. Representatives for Lauder didn't respond to requests to accept questions on his behalf. Schwarzman's spokesperson wrote that he is “one of the largest individual taxpayers in the country and fully complies with all tax rules."

A typical GRAT entails putting assets, like stocks, in a trust that ultimately benefits a person's heirs. The trust pays back an amount equal to what the trust's creator put in plus a modest amount of interest. But any gains on the investments above that amount flow to the heirs free of gift or estate taxes. So if a person puts $100 million worth of stock in a GRAT and the stock rises in value to $130 million, their heirs would receive about $30 million tax-free.

In 1990, Congress accidentally created GRATs when it closed another estate tax loophole that was popular at the time. The IRS challenged the maneuver but lost in court.

“I don't blame the taxpayers who are doing it," said Daniel Hemel, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. “Congress has virtually invited them to do it. I blame Congress for creating the monster and then failing to stop the monster once it became clear how much of the tax base the GRAT monster would eat up."

Users of the trusts extend well beyond the top of the Forbes rankings, ProPublica's analysis of the confidential IRS files show. Erik Prince, founder of the military contractor Blackwater and himself heir to an auto parts fortune, used the shelter. Fashion designer Calvin Klein has used them, as have “Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels and media mogul Oprah Winfrey.

“We have paid all taxes due," a spokesperson for Winfrey said. A representative of Klein did not accept questions from ProPublica or respond to messages. A spokesman for Michaels declined to comment.

Prince also did not answer questions. “Hey if you publish private information about me I'll be sure to return the favor," he wrote. “Go ahead and fuck off."

The GRAT has become so ubiquitous in recent decades that high-end tax lawyers consider it a plain vanilla strategy. “This is an off-the-shelf solution," said Michael Kosnitzky, co-leader of the private wealth practice at law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. “Almost every wealthy person should have one."

ProPublica's tally almost certainly undercounts the number of Forbes 100 members who use shelters to avoid estate taxes. ProPublica counted only those people whose tax records or public filings explicitly mention GRATs or other trusts commonly used to dodge gift and estate taxes. But a wealthy person can call their trusts whatever they want, leaving plenty of trusts outside of ProPublica's count.

This month, the House and Senate are hammering out proposals to raise revenue to help pay for the Biden administration's plans to expand the social safety net. The legislative blueprint released by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., would defang GRATs and other trusts, which would still be legal but no longer be as useful for estate tax avoidance. If the provision makes it into law, “it would put a major dent in GRATs," said Bob Lord, an Arizona attorney who specializes in trusts and estates.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has proposed going further in undercutting estate tax avoidance tools. But the prospect of any reform is uncertain, as Democrats on Capitol Hill struggle to find the votes to pass the package of spending and tax changes.

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GRATs are commonly described by tax lawyers as a “heads I win, tails we tie" proposition. If the investment placed in the GRAT soars in value, that increase passes to an heir without being subject to future estate tax. If the investment doesn't go up, the wealthy person can simply try again and again until they succeed, leading many users to have multiple GRATs going at a time....

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