Who says he's paying FICA and other taxes? I worked for the same employer (Darden Restaurants) when I was fresh out of high school, and I saw the pay stubs of the immigrant workers - they did not pay any of that. Their take home pay was their hourly rate * the number of hours worked. That was a long time ago (mid 90s), but I have no particular reason to believe anything has changed.
Sorry: I was confused by the HN title, which refers to these people as "Americans", which would imply he's a citizen.
The article doesn't make that claim. But at the same time, unless he's here on a student visa or some such, his employer is required to pay FICA taxes, AFAICT. I think that's true for Haitians with refugee status.
EDIT: I see the title has been updated. With the exception of the "Americans" issue, I liked the old title better. "Amber Waves of Green" doesn't tell you much about the link.
Just because they are required to pay FICA doesn't mean they are. Under-the-table cash payment jobs are not that uncommon particularly for laborer work done by (possibly undocumented) immigrants.
There are a lot of things businesses are required to do that they don't do. I saw the checks - Darden wasn't deducting any sort of taxes from the paychecks (yes, checks, not under the table cash payments) of the undocumented workers they employed. Maybe they showed something different to the IRS.
To be fair, I wanted to point out the term 'American' does not just apply to citizens of the USA. I'm not sure whether the Haitians consider themselves 'American' since they are not part of the main land, but they could consider themselves a part of 'the Americas' and thus 'Americans'.
That's a commonly prosecuted source of tax fraud. If someone works like an employee (how and when they do their work is dictated by a manager, etc), the IRS says they are an employee. Microsoft was famously dinged for this a few years back.
Ahh! You just enlightened me as to why my manager (I'm a contractor) hardly ever talks to us. He's maintaining a hands off non-management management style. Which is kind of OK, but surprisingly disappointing.
If the company you work for provides office space, equipment, and sets your hours, you may be able to force them to pay for half your social security tax, etc. It's a fuzzy line between employee and contractor.
