As US Passports for Domestic Flights Loom, IRS Can Now Revoke Passports | Hacker News Reader

As US Passports for Domestic Flights Loom, IRS Can Now Revoke Passports

world.tax

35 pointscomplius79 comments

Not going to happen. That would shut down air travel. The TSA will not be allowed to shut down air travel.

The TSA isn't even allowed to blanket ban people from traveling without ID documents in the status quo. (Surprised? https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification)

Yep. Both sides are bluffing and it's just a question of who's going to blink first. And the IRS tie-in is just weird. OK, so they might refuse to issue you a passport if you have more than $50,000 in unpaid federal taxes. They put people in prison for that sort of thing, saying you're not allowed to fly is pretty minor by comparison.

The whole article has a breathlessly conspiratorial tone.

They put people in prison for that sort of thing

If you report income honestly and simply don't pay taxes you get sent a bill a few times and then collection efforts escalate with e.g. offsets against your tax refunds, liens against your property, and garnishing your bank account and/or wages. You have to defraud them (very egregiously) to get prosecuted.

Sorry to be picky about this, but we're on a forum chock-full of entrepreneurs and it's highly likely that there exist people here who will have a run-in with the IRS 1+ times in their life. It's not like getting prosecuted for embezzlement. It's like having an acrimonious dispute with your landlord. Money is the root of it, money will solve it, and money will pay boring straight-laced professionals who deal with this sort of stuff five days a week in a way that would make very, very poor television.

If you owe the IRS $50k, that's very, very far from being the end of the world. It's not as socially acceptable as owing Bank of America $50k but it almost certainly carries a lower interest rate [+] and you'll find that the clockpunching bureaucrats over there will diligently pursue their process but won't break any land-speed records over it because neither they nor Uncle Sam really care about whether you pay that this year or in 2021.

+ If you had stiffed Uncle Sam on 50k for your 2010 taxes (due 4/15/2016) you'd presently be looking at paying ~$71k after interest and penalties, which works out to a hair over 7% APR.

Owing the IRS 50k is more socially acceptable than owing Bank of America 50k. If you get into intractable debt with Bank of America, they will destroy your credit. If the same happens with the IRS, they will put you on a payment plan.

Not to nitpick with the spirit of your point, but I wouldn't say this satisfies the requirements for socially acceptable. What you're explaining just means owing money to the IRS is an easier situation to resolve than owing money to a bank. Before you and Patrick explain the nuances of these scenarios (such as in this thread), I'm willing to bet most people look at it more like this:

John owes the bank $50,000

Hey, John is almost done paying off his mortgage. That's just swell.

James owes the IRS $50,000

Did you hear about James? What is he involved in and why doesn't he pay his taxes?

I think social acceptance is more or less positively correlated with what's common for the middle class. Taking out $50,000 in student loans for a degree with poor ROI is inarguably a bad financial decision, but it's fundamentally sound in terms of social signaling.

Conversely, not paying taxes is something that would be unthinkable to the anxious fiscal sensibilities of the middle class (but notably, not necessarily the upper class if they can benefit from it, and not necessarily the lower class if they can't afford it).

Oh, I didn't realize he was referring to loans; I thought he meant deficiencies.

But it's the same with the passports, right? They have a big hammer they can use, but what they really want is their money, so they'll do what they can to get it. They want to have the threat so they can get their money. The new law says this only applies to "seriously delinquent tax debt" which means you not only owe it, but aren't paying it, it's escalated to a lien or levy, and you have no pending hearings about it. Maybe this is less than what it takes to get prosecuted, but it's not like they're just saying, "you owe us a lot, no travel for you until you pay us."

The State Department can already refuse to issue or renew passports for as little as $2,500 in unpaid child support, or if you defaulted on a loan from the State Department to help you return to the US. So this general theme is not unprecedented.

I've owed more than $50k in taxes (at times where I had no immediate prospect of covering the deficiency) and, this may be news to you, but: it's just not a big deal to owe lots of money in taxes. Nobody cares. You'll get a tax lien, offered a payment plan, and, if you're obstinate, have your wages garnished. That's it.

The IRS cannot in general prevent you from receiving government services. You can be accused of tax fraud, at which point your case will be heard in a criminal court. That's it, except for the passport thing.

How does this interact with no-fly lists?

Every other country requires passports for air travel. We're doing fine.

I am not sure how true this is, but even if it were, I would assume you're largely referring to European countries, where the nature of air travel is very different. In most of Europe you cannot get on a plane and fly in any direction for more than an hour or two and not wind up in a different country. Hence people who fly are overwhelmingly going to have a passport if it's needed (especially if you factor in that many European countries have excellent high speed rail for intra-country travel), and therefore this barrier is not much of an issue.

Meanwhile, in this universe, travel inside the Schengen area (which covers an impressive chunk of Europe) does not require a passport, but any kind of national ID, regardless how many borders it crosses. Coincidentally, it's the same as for internal air travel.

I guessed as much, thanks.

Domestic flights within the UK don't require passports (although the airlines may require some form of ID to be presented in order to get boarding passes).

No, many European countries have national ID cards and you can fly between some EU countries using only that, not your passport.

"The Real ID Act created a national standard for state-issued IDs. Some states initially refused to comply, fearing that the federal government would make a national database of citizens."

Aren't Social Security numbers precisely that already? Not asking this question facetiously. Genuinely curious as to the distinction here.

I just generally assume the federal government has a database of citizens, and perhaps several databases. Not stating a political opinion on this one way or the other; just saying that it seems laughably naive to assume they don't, or that they don't already have the means to create one.

In theory, yes. Though SSNs aren't unique. Which was a problem for me, though I guess the other holder of my SSN has passed since I haven't had any issues in years.

They're not unique? Jesus. I really had no idea. That seems...suboptimal, to say the least. So basically you need to do a vlookup every time you want to know who any given SS is in any particular circumstance. Huh.

So ironically enough, this means that social security numbers require a database of citizens in order to be useful identifiers. Unless I'm missing something here.

(On the flipside, I suppose you could argue that unique SS ids would be a lot more vulnerable to security risks.)

The first 3 represent the location the SSN is issued in. The next 2 are some sort of group identifier. Last 4 are a serial number, issued sequentially. Keeping in mind that they're 9 digit numbers (1 billion possibilities) and the area portion restricts it to 6 digits, the odds of collision are reasonably high. Basically, if more than 1 million people are assigned SSNs in the same "area", you will have a collision. More area numbers are assigned to mitigate this, but there's still a chance.

http://www.usrecordsearch.com/ssn.htm

Has some details on the structure of social security numbers.

EDIT: Also, even if they were issued as unique serial numbers from the start, once we exceed a total population (not living, but dead and living) of over 1 billion assigned social security numbers, we'd have had collisions anyways.

That was before 2011. Since then they assign numbers randomly.

Fascinating. Thank you!

This isn't entirely accurate.

SS numbers were created specifically with the intent of not being an identification, and were labeled as such. They were created to track people in the Social Security program. Since you can't be dead and enrolled in SS, they don't need to be unique. Duplicates have also been issued in the past by accident.

The SS Administration (man, that sounds really bad) claims it has issued 450 million SSN's since the beginning of the program (which is interesting considering there's 322 million people in the US today) and that it has space for "several generations" without re-issuing numbers or increasing the number of digits.

Although the number space is 9 digits, the structure of the records allows for far less than 1 billion real SSNs. The numbers have existed since 1936, and have been required for every US citizen since 1990. With 5.5 million new SSNs issued every year, it could take around 120 years to run out of numbers at the current rate.

Good explanation. Thank you. It had occurred to me that non-unique ids have advantages in preventing tracking or master databasing, but it had seemed that in praxis, those advantages were negated by the way that SS numbers are actually used in various circumstances. But I see what you're saying.

> The Real ID Act created a national standard for state-issued IDs. Some states initially refused to comply, fearing that the federal government would make a national database of citizens.

The US is a weird place...

Indeed. I'm not quite sure why people think the government doesn't already a "national database of citizens" between social security (theoretically assigned to every citizen) and taxes (ties SSN to address yearly).

For sure, and on a more philosophical level, I would think that 'knowing who her citizens are' would be on the shortlist of things a nation-state does.

Yeah, but there's knowing that a person named John Smith is a citizen, and knowing that John Smith lives at 123 Maple Way in Sometown, State, that he is currently an organ donor, that his face is a partial match to faces sighted at at least 3 crimes, that he flew out of the country 14 times last year, and that he currently owes $43,578 in back taxes as a result of some unreported contracting work.

The latter kind of knowing is what we're afraid of, especially the database of faces.

To be honest, nearly all of that sounds perfectly reasonable information for the federal government to have. Trusting the card being presented to you by the person making the identity claim is a fundamentally flawed idea that has always been mitigated with technology (stamps, seals, holograms, etc) which is all now irrelevant. You tell me you're "John Smith", I look it up. Even current forms of ID use biometric data (a photo & DOB) to validate the claim. I would certainly hope the government would know that John has left the country X times and owes Y in back taxes, as that's their job to know. Address and organ donor status are IMHO silly things to put on an ID card, (you don't need to live somewhere to be John, or have decided what your organ donor status is), but don't strike me as dangerous things for the federal government to know.

How this information is disseminated within the federal government or between states sounds like an excellent debate to have, as does the discussion about due process for suspects... but 'should the government be able to know who it's citizens are' is a silly one.

Organ donation I can see, and maybe the facial matching. But international border crossings and tax status seems like exactly the sort of thing the government should know.

The real ID act created a data sharing system between all the states of everything encoded on your driver's license, including picture. the picture is then fed into facial recognition software which is used in a variety of places. A while back a Chinese national was working with a dataset in an opaque federal "fusion center" before abruptly quitting and flying home to China, woops https://www.propublica.org/article/lizhong-fan

> social security (theoretically assigned to every citizen)

Participation in the Social Security program is optional.[0]

[0] https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10023.pdf

That database doesn't yet include everywhere you go for example (hopefully)... Governments would love it if your online activity would need to be tied to a national ID for example...

The initial draft of the Minnesota State House's ban on Real ID compliance [0] specifically objected to a few aspects of the law:

- "the security and well-being of the people of Minnesota," which I believe references long-standing American objections to national identification schemes. Some context in [1].

- "to avoid unneeded expense to the people," referencing the fact that the federal government offered no funding to offset the cost of implementing Real ID.

- "to preserve the principles of federalism embodied in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution," which speaks to concerns that the federal government was usurping rights reserved for the states, and thus challenging the fundamental, federated structure of the nation.

The final text of the bill [3] omits those specific complaints, but I found they shed light on the political context around the bill. Ultimately, it was passed 133-0 in the Minnesota House, and 64-1 in the Minnesota Senate.

[0]: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=HF1438&vers...

[1]: https://epic.org/privacy/id_cards/

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_...

[3]: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/?year=2009&type=0&doctype=Ch...

The issue wasn't/isn't databases as much rather creating a compulsory national ID card. Requiring a federal ID that people have to carry at all times for many purposes is the concern..."your papers please" echoes totalitarian regimes.

How does checking someone's ID make an airport more secure? Either you can screen for weapons or you cannot.

I get the impression it is not at all about security but security theater, as Bruce Schneier would say.

It makes the govt appear to be doing something against a perceived threat.

But more importantly, it acclimates people to needing permission to travel and being observed while they do so; to being accountable to the government instead of having the government being accountable to the people; and to having a police presence in the most mundane aspects of their life.

We've seen this before in history and it didn't end well.

Follow the money.

ID checks prevent people from reselling airline tickets. That allows the airlines to make more money from change fees and abandoned tickets. Making the security people do the checks allows the airlines to look innocent in this.

I agree there's multiple interests aligned, as always, in the airline case.

But we're also seeing TSA involvement on the street, at sporting events, train stations, and other seemingly useless places. The assertion about police state desensitization remains...

I get your point (and it's a good one), but I don't think it's even possible to get 100% effectiveness in screening for weapons. The government can't even keep cell phones and drugs out of jail. From a Bayesian standpoint, having the ability to look out for certain individuals and subject them to more scrutiny should at least in theory (if it's done correctly) lead to better outcomes.

In a lot of European airports you're not asked for ID. At least as long as you don't leave the Schengen area.

This certainly applies for Zurich, Vienna, Düsseldorf and Warsaw.

You just scan your bording pass, or barcode on the phone and enter through an automated gate. Same, mostly applies, when you enter the plane.

This is not a recommendation not to carry an id, because there's always the possibility that some official, or airline staff wants to see it.

The devil's advocate would point out that it makes the country more safe by keeping known terrorists out and/or limiting the mobility of criminals. For example, if someone just murdered their family, the easiest way to distance themselves from the scene of the crime would be to get on a plane for L.A.

They can't, and they know they can't. The TSA failing their own tests is in the news every now and then. So they pile on more layers of security.

Also worth noting, they care about the appearance of security in addition to the actual level of security. And boondoggle projects are great cover for otherwise unsavory projects.

A lot, if not most, of the security surrounding flights happens behind the scenes before you even get to the airport. If the name on the ticket is not the person getting on the plane, then all of that background work is worthless.

Which means it's also possible for a prospective terrorist or group of terrorists to go buy plane tickets to test how the system behaves, and rule out team members who are on the no-fly or selectee lists?

There are all kinds of reasons the tsa and the airlines want to make sure you are who you claim you are. Most obvious would be checking to make sure you're not someone on the 'no flight list' for example.

Well, how does a no-fly list work without ID?

Exactly as well as it should work.

Social graphs help solve and prevent crime.

Shades of the Soviet Union, which required passports for internal travel.

The EU does passport checks on many internal travel services. It's not that there truly are no ways to travel without showing passports, but there's very few. Well on the continent you can just take a car, although with the refugee crisis there's many checks.

E.g. taking the train from London's King's Cross to Paris you will be subject to a full security screening and passport inspection. Faster than getting on a plane. Same for taking internal flights (even within a country. Paris to Marseille ... you need a passport) and I'm sure that's not the last list.

I contend that despite this there are many differences between the EU and the USSR, even with both being led by "commissars" (or is it commissioners ?)

On UK to France you are checked because you are crossing the Schengen border.

That's because their passport was a universally accepted ID and just about everyone had one issued once they turned 16 (I think it was mandatory to have one actually).

They actually had (and still do have) two passports. One for international travel and one for domestic travel. The international travel one was like ours: Not mandatory and a little bit hard to get.

Except that in the USSR the checks existed because many people simply weren't allowed to travel, you can still take other modes of transportation without a passport, and this passport requirement has a roughly zero chance of actually happening.

I'm no fan of the airline security apparatus, but let's be realistic.

I had to show id card for the Barcelona - Madrid rapid train. Spain is as far from USSR as possible.

In Europe the system with population wide government mandated and granted id works very well, is not burdensome and is not a big deal. And I have no idea why the US has not implemented one yet.

Isn't this against the constitution? I thought not restricting interstate travel and avoiding a Holy Roman Empire situation was part of the reason for having a federation.

ID requirements are changing, but there will be options other than US Passports or Real ID for domestic travel.

I live in Minnesota, a state which does not comply with Real ID, and which specifically passed legislation prohibiting compliance with Real ID [0]. There was a lot of sabre-rattling about this from the federal government last year, and the reaction is generally overblown.

First, stating that "passports may be required" is misleading. Many documents are acceptable for domestic travel, including "Enhanced Drivers Licenses," Global Entry / NEXUS / SENTRI cards, and others [1]. An EDL costs an extra $15 in Minnesota, while membership in a Trusted Traveler Program like NEXUS is $50 / 5 years (which, incidentally, includes both PreCheck and Global Entry, each of which is more expensive.)

Second, the TSA explicitly states [2] that all state-issued IDs will be acceptable until January 22nd, 2018, and that non-compliant states may be able to get extensions until October 1st, 2020.

Third, after October 1st, 2020, travelers must present "a REAL ID-compliant license or another acceptable form of identification," per the list in [1]. It's not Real ID, Passport, or nothing.

[0]: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/?year=2009&type=0&doctype=Ch...

[1]: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification

[2]: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/frequently-asked-questions#realid

Linked article is a poorly written conspiracy theory.

This has to be like the fourth extension of the deadline now. I'm not entirely convinced they're ever going to follow through.

Debts of $50,000 of more.

Sounds like rich people problems to me.

$50k in taxes can be a surprisingly low threshold. If you run a retail business you might do a couple million in sales to clear $100k for yourself. A simple misclassification of your labor or materials can put you $50k in debt to the IRS. In the scheme of how much money passes through a small business owner's hands, $50k isn't a lot of money even if $50k income is.

I had someone classify some non real property purchase from me as a service (personally taxable). I had completed all tax forms correctly. The IRS had accepted the taxes I paid on the profit of the property. But the people I sold it to claimed it was a service, so the IRS thought I had $15k income that I hadn't reported. I wasn't anywhere near the $50k mark (closer to $5-6k), but all it took was one person claiming something sketchy to make me delinquent in the eyes of the IRS, even when I had done my taxes correctly.

Note that the law requires far more than just being delinquent. You have to be to the point where you've failed to work out any sort of payment plan and they're filing liens, and it excludes any case where there's a pending hearing on the matter.

True enough. I was just trying to make the point that hitting a $50k threshold may be difficult for someone on a W2, it can come up pretty quickly for someone scraping by if they employ anyone or sell anything.

A $50,000 debt he can't pay off does not a rich man make.

tell that to the The Carlyle Group

But isn't it the land of freedom? Is easier for me to travel to most countries of south america than for an us citizen to travel inside his/her own country.

Soon you will not be allowed to breath without a passport, what a fu up world!

>Passport for domestic flights

And now the airlines will get even less money

Except the headline is wrong. TSA is, as a consequence of the REAL ID Act, going to require REAL ID compliant IDs in 2018. These are predominantly state issued identification cards (typically a drivers license). Passports are an alternate, valid ID.

How does it work for foreigners (aka "aliens" - what a weird term) living here?

Permanent resident cards, foreign passports, and many other documents are accepted in addition to Real IDs: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification

Note that this use is the original meaning of "alien." The contemporary meaning of "extraterrestrial" is a recent mutation of it.

No problem for me, New York has been issuing Real ID's for a long time, it is nice to have a driver's license that is good for Mexico and Canada. Much cheaper and useful than a CLEAR card.

In fact, New York is one of the states NOT issuing real IDs by default, so good luck flying to any other state with a NY license. You'd need to get the other version of the license, which I suspect most people wouldn't get (I know I haven't in the past).

It's not just the Real ID that makes you able to go to Mexico and Canada without a passport. It is that the ID is an 'Enhanced Driver's License.' Currently this only applies to licenses issued in Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, South Dakota, Vermont and Washington.

Florida is Real ID compliant, but not an Enhanced Driver's License, so you cannot use it to cross international borders. For that, I use a passport card.

>Currently this only applies to licenses issued in Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, South Dakota, Vermont and Washington.

I can only speak for New York, but it's actually a bit of a pain and an extra cost to get the enhanced license here. The only reason I did it is because I live on the Canadian border and always carry my license but rarely carry my passport. Now I can take an impromptu trip up to Canada without worrying if I have the right ID on me. Plus, I seem to get less border hassle when the agent sees the address on my license is only a couple miles away.

But for someone living downstate it would make little sense to spend extra money and spend more time at the DMV for an enhanced license.

Pretty cool. I usually have a passport card and an extra wallet in my bag for if things get stolen (another debit card to a different account, other credit cards, etc). I've never actually used it, but I'm on a flight twice a week.

You're talking about the "Enhanced License" which cost almost as much as a passport and is just as much of a hassle to get, so you might as well just get a passport and cover world travel. I live 20 minutes from Canada, when they started requiring that, I stopped going there.

Are you sure? DMV page says otherwise:

http://dmv.ny.gov/driver-license/about-federal-real-id

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