Report: Immigrants pay $154M in Nebraska taxes in 2006

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By JEAN ORTIZ / The Associated Press

OMAHA — Immigrants paid about $154 million in 2006 in Nebraska property, income, sales and gasoline taxes, according to a newly released University of Nebraska at Omaha study.

Released Wednesday by the university’s Office of Latino/Latin American Studies — better known as OLLAS — the report examines how Nebraska immigrants contribute to the state’s economy.

Those state tax payments break down to a per capita immigrant contribution of $1,554. The native-born population by contrast had a per capita contribution of $1,944.

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Immigrants, meanwhile, cost the state government nearly $145 million in food stamps, public assistance, health and educational expenditures in 2006. That breaks down to about $1,455 per capita. The native-born population meanwhile had per capita costs of about $1,941.

Available data prevented the report’s authors from differentiating between illegal and legal immigrants in their analysis.

Research found that in 2006, immigrant spending amounted to $1.6 billion and created about 12,000 jobs statewide.

Foreign-born people numbered about 99,500 in Nebraska in 2006. That’s about 5.6 percent of the total state population.

Christopher Decker, an associate professor of economics, prepared the 37-page report for OLLAS. He was assisted by Jerry Deichert with the university’s Center for Public Affairs Research and OLLAS Executive Director Lourdes Gouveia.

A grant from the U.S. Department of Education helped fund the effort.