Drop in immigrant tax filings may cost government billions as IRS shares data with ICE [View all]

Source: Washington Post

By the time Tax Day rolls around every April 15, accountant María José Solís usually has more to do. More clients. More paperwork. More phones ringing, more emails and WhatsApp messages pinging.

But this year, she said, more than 550 of her regular clients have disappeared. That’s about 15 percent of her customer base at Toro Taxes, the bilingual firm in Wheaton, Maryland, that Solís runs.

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Immigrants who are not legally authorized to work in the United States still do so — and many opt to pay into the tax system through a federal individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) that is available to people who don’t have Social Security numbers. Federal data shows that as of 2021, there were 5.4 million active ITIN users, though not all are assigned to undocumented immigrants.

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The Yale Budget Lab estimates that the IRS stands to lose between $147 billion and $479 billion over the next decade as migration to the U.S. declines, deportations increase and immigrants of various statuses disengage from the formal economy for what some experts say may be an extended period.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/04/15/tax-day-immigrant-filers-ice-arrests/