For some H1B holders, check is not in mail

When US Congress passed the economic stimulus package towards the end of last year giving rebates to most tax payers, it tried to ensure that the illegal immigrants don’t get any of the cash. But in doing so lawmakers inadvertently penalized thousands of H1 B holders whose spouses (on H4) may not have the social security number.

US immigration law does not permit the spouse (on H4 visa) of H1 B holders in US to get SSN. According to US Department of Homeland Security, there are now between 600,000 to 800,000 H1B visa holders in US. Exactly how many of them married to spouses ineligible to work in this country is unclear.

US Govt. collects all the taxes and fee that it collects from its citizen and hence the Govt should have given rebates to these H1B holders who are filing their taxes jointly with their spouses who do not have SSN. It should be a level playing field.

While it is true that no law has ever been written that doesn’t find someone falling through the cracks, the Govt. officials should come up with some way to help H1B holders married to spouses who by virtue of their ineligibility to work cannot have a social security number. One quick way of finding a solution is to issue a SSN for the sole purpose of getting the tax rebate as part of this economic stimulus package.