Many taxpayers to miss out on rebate

Juliana Barbassa

Immigrants, citizens whose spouse lacks SS number ineligible

SAN FRANCISCO – When Maulit Shelat heard about the Bush administration's plan to pump up the economy by sending out stimulus checks, he sat down with his wife and drew up a list of priorities: first up, remodeling the bathroom.

But Shelat is married to a foreigner who still hasn't completed the often years-long process that allows her to apply for a Social Security number. Her not having that number makes even him ineligible for the tax rebate checks that started going out last week because they filed jointly.

He is among an estimated hundreds of thousands of taxpayers – from legal immigrants to soldiers based abroad – who won't be getting a share of the stimulus package because of a provision aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from getting rebates.

“I would have fed this economy as well,” said Shelat, an Indian engineer living with his wife and two children in the Buffalo, N.Y.-area. “We live within this economy, work, pay taxes, do everything by the book. Whatever the reasons for giving this economic stimulus package, they apply to us as well.”

When lawmakers decided to send out the checks, ranging from $300 to $600 per adult taxpayer, plus an additional $300 for each child, they formulated it so only taxpayers who have Social Security numbers would qualify.

The rule unintentionally caught many taxpayers who would have qualified for the bonus, except they filed jointly with a spouse whose immigration status doesn't allow them to have a Social Security number. Among them are some of the 288,000 troops stationed overseas who may have married a foreigner.

“An American soldier who has married someone from another country and is waiting for an (immigration) petition to get approved – that soldier not getting that check is stupid,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, whose district includes Silicon Valley, home of many high-tech workers who fell through the rebate cracks.

There are also an estimated 1 million legal residents – immigrants with green cards – who are waiting for their spouses' paperwork to be processed, according to Paul Donnelly of Reform the Rebate, a group trying to push Congress the change the rule. The IRS doesn't keep numbers of how many of that group are cut out of the rebate because they filed jointly. And many of the 600,000 to 800,000 highly skilled immigrants on work visas in the United States, like Shelat, have found themselves in the same position, having married a foreigner.

Many of the couples snagged by this provision weren't aware that filing taxes using the foreign spouse's IRS-issued Taxpayer Identification Number instead of a Social Security number would cut them out. On April 14, the day before the tax deadline, the IRS clarified the situation on its Web site.

Tax advisers said even if these couples had known, frequently the financial benefits of filing jointly outweigh the maximum of $600 that the spouse with the Social Security number could get by filing separately.