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Comment by plehoux | Hacker News Reader

Immigrants pay taxes.

So do employees of companies: income tax and sales tax and property tax. Even if Amazon gets a fairly large tax break, but net effect is overwhelmingly positive. The main downside of increased local wealth is higher overall prices and gentrification, which isn’t an entirely bad thing as long as it’s at reasonable levels. So all these new residents come to Philly or wherever, drive up rent prices. That means the local Philadelphia landlords become wealthier. I hate high rent prices, but I feel like this is a net benefit to both local residents and newcomers who come for the job.

Sometimes new immigrants get tax breaks though

Do you have an example?

I agree with your OP, but citizens get far more tax breaks than immigrants.

Citizens don't have to pay foreigner rates for public Universities. That's a nice $50k-$100k savings for higher-education that citizens get that universities don't get, right there.

What kind of breaks do immigrants get over citizens that are worth $50k-$100k? None.

That is NOT a tax break....the immigrants and their families didn't spend years paying into the state tax base used to support the public university which the citizens presumably did and will continue to do in the future...

edit: I am using immigrant-when perhaps one should use 'international student'

A lot of public universities only have 1 year of previous in-state residency requirement to gain in-state rates.

People aren't going to pay $50k-$100k in taxes in one year to cover this benefit that citizens receive.

Because they lived in another state in the same country basically, and in theory people could just as easily move in the opposite direction.

But you're right that in practice it is taken advantage of with people renting an apartment for a year and doing the minimum necessarily to register as residents.

So overall you're still incorrect about it being a foreigner tax, implying perhaps they just hate non Americans and want to punish them.

Also same full tuition applies to non residents from other states.

Universities often base tuition on residency status that they determine.

So a foreigner living in a state could get in state tuition.

(and a citizen that only recently moved to a state might get out of state tuition)

That is incorrect. You need to be a permanent resident or citizen to be considered for in-state tuition.

For example:

https://www.suny.edu/smarttrack/residency/

Non-resident students, including undocumented students, who attend for at least two years and graduate from a New York high school may be eligible for resident tuition. See the campus Student Accounts Office (Bursar) for details and to apply for resident tuition.

https://admissions.tc.umn.edu/PDFs/ResidencyReciprocity.pdf

Nonimmigrants residing in this country or state under a temporary visa that bars them from establishing domicile in the U.S. (visas B, F, H [H4 visa holders who have graduated from a Minnesota high school should contact the Resident Classification Office on campus about their resident status.], J, O, and M) shall be classified as nonresidents. Nonimmigrants holding a valid temporary visa that does not bar them from establishing domicile in the U.S. (visas A, E, G, I or L) may be considered for residency, assuming they otherwise meet the Basic Definition of Resident Status.

An then many states seem to recognize refugee and asylum visas, which aren't the same as permanent residence (but that is more of a technicality compared to the above).

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