"Back-taxes requirement stripped from amnesty bill — at Bush’s urging"

Yet another reason I can't wait for this guy to get the hell out of office. From Hot Air:

A provision requiring payment of back taxes had been in the initial version of a bill proposed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat. But the administration called for the provision to be removed due to concern that it would be too difficult to figure out which illegal immigrants owed back taxes...

Laura Capps, a spokeswoman for Kennedy, said a provision for requiring back taxes was in Kennedy’s original bill and that [DHS Secretary Michael] Chertoff called for it to be removed. “Chertoff thought it would be too challenging to accurately determine the amount of an applicant’s back taxes,” she said...

Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union, which says it has 362,000 members, was stunned that the provision was removed. While saying it would be difficult to come up with a precise estimate of the amount of back taxes owed by undocumented residents, he said it would be in the tens of billions of dollars, with a similar amount in fines for failure to pay the taxes.

Too challenging, you see. In contrast to, say, the bureaucracy that’s going to be needed to enforce the moronic, purely symbolic touchback requirement. That’s not too challenging.

The real reason they stripped it is because they know illegals wouldn’t comply with it, just like many of them aren’t going to comply by paying the $5,000 penalty. Which is why that’ll end up being stripped too.

Just you try and tell the feds that figuring out your taxes is "too challenging" and see if that won't land you in the federal hoosegow. Law-abiding Americans can get in trouble for screwing up their tax burden, but illegal aliens get a pass on it. Tell me again how this is NOT amnesty?