U.S. troops sent to the Mexican border could be charged thousands of dollars in taxes due to bureaucratic error
Texas National Guard troops deployed to the Mexican border during Operation Lone Star, initiated by state governor Greg Abbott, will be forced to pay a tax debt that arose due to a bureaucratic error. This is reported by the American edition of The Texas Tribune.
Operation Lone Star launched in March last year. The purpose of this mission was to counter the increased flow of illegal migration from Mexico.
The article says that the tax error is not the only problem in Abbott's hastily deployed mission. In the past, there have been cases of soldiers being paid late, too little, or not at all for months at a time.
On October 6, U.S. military officials in Texas reportedly admitted that the payroll system they used during the operation had withheld too little federal tax from military payrolls starting in October 2021. At the same time, in November, Abbott increased the number of military personnel in the mission from 2500 to 6500 people.
Abbott's office did not respond to the publication's request for the amount owed by the military to the state. Officials only explained that the payroll system was set up to pay military personnel twice a month, rather than once a month, as indicated on tax returns. All of this resulted in a tax withholding error that could affect 96% of the mission's twice-monthly payroll personnel.
Now the US military could be charged thousands of dollars in taxes due to a bureaucratic error.
The publication emphasizes that some military personnel have already turned to their command with the question: what kind of support will the department provide them in the course of collecting tax payments due to an error that has arisen through no fault of their own.
They answered that each soldier should figure it out on his own. It's a typical response we get from the Texas Army National Guard, like, "hey, we need help," and they basically just say we'll have to deal with it ourselves.
- quotes the publication of the words of one of the National Guardsmen.
The serviceman also said that he was disappointed that there had been no investigation into the matter and no action had been taken to hold the officials accountable.
If it was someone like us low rank soldiers we would be held accountable
- the soldier told reporters, hinting at the corruption immunity of the senior command staff.
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