The Trump administration has proposed requiring every American taxpayer to disclose their citizenship and work authorization status directly on their annual IRS tax forms, a move officials claim could save taxpayers up to $2 billion by blocking illegal immigrants from claiming federal tax credits they should not receive.
New Citizenship Questions On Tax Forms
The IRS released draft versions of the 2026 Form 1040 in late August featuring a new mandatory question asking filers and their spouses to certify whether they are U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or aliens lawfully authorized to work in America. Taxpayers must answer under penalty of law to file their returns. A similar question appears on Schedule 3-A, the form used to claim refundable tax credits including the Earned Income Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credit.
Treasury Department officials stated the new requirement aims to prevent illegal immigrants from accessing refundable tax credits designed for low and middle-income American workers and families. Officials refused to confirm whether the collected citizenship data would be shared with federal immigration enforcement agencies for arrest and deportation purposes, saying only that information would be subject to standard privacy protections.
Who Gets Blocked From Credits
The proposal applies standards from the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which governs federal benefit eligibility, to refundable tax credits for the first time. Current law already requires valid Social Security numbers for the Earned Income Tax Credit, automatically excluding most illegal immigrants who use Individual Tax Identification Numbers instead. However, the new policy would also disqualify legal immigrants currently eligible for credits, including DACA recipients, temporary protected status holders, and H-1B visa workers.
Research published this week estimates 671,000 people, including 309,000 children, would lose Earned Income Tax Credit eligibility under this proposal. Another 1.1 million people, including 574,000 children, would lose access to the Additional Child Tax Credit. Meanwhile, IRS data shows that 3.8 million tax returns filed with Individual Tax Identification Numbers in 2024 contributed $14.4 billion in income taxes and $6.5 billion in Social Security and Medicare taxes, though these workers generally cannot collect Social Security benefits.
What This Means
The administration argues illegal migrants should not access federal benefits despite paying into the tax system. Critics contend the policy would harm legal immigrants and their American-born children who currently qualify for these credits under existing law. The proposed forms represent a significant expansion of IRS involvement in immigration enforcement, transforming the annual tax filing process into a citizenship screening mechanism affecting millions of American families.