A bill would withhold taxes for workers who may be illegal immigrants.
Sen. David Hoyle, a Gaston County Democrat, said he filed the bill after hearing from the N.C. Department of Revenue that some contractors don't pay income tax.
Under the current system, contractors who have Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, or ITINs, instead of Social Security numbers can avoid having state income tax taken out of their paychecks.
But Hoyle said the state has no way to find those workers later on if they don't end up paying, since federal law prohibits the Internal Revenue Service from sharing information on ITINs to other government agencies.
"You can't get an address. You can't track them down. You can't audit them." he said. "Osama bin Laden could get an ITIN number and nobody would ever check him."
He said the Department of Revenue is losing "hundreds of millions of dollars" from unpaid taxes.
"Everybody should have to pay their taxes," he said.
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Re: Bill would withhold taxes
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