Filipino workers in CNMI set to pay US taxes in 2015

GARAPAN, Saipan – Thousands of Filipino workers in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands will be required to pay U.S. Social Security and Medicare taxes starting on Jan. 1, 2015.

Currently in the CNMI, only Filipino workers are not being required to pay taxes under the Federal Insurance Contribution Act, or FICA.
 
But the U.S. Internal Revenue Service said employers of workers from the Philippines working in the CNMI must start withholding and paying FICA taxes starting Jan. 1, 2015.
 
The transitional immigration program that allows the CNMI continued access to some 10,000 foreign workers mostly from the Philippines has just been recently extended by five years or up to Dec. 31, 2019. 
 
This means at least up to that year, Filipino workers with CW permits will be required to pay U.S. Social Security and Medicare taxes under FICA.
 
Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP), the CNMI’s nonvoting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, told GMA News that he is “not going to spend political capital” on extending the FICA tax payment exemption for Filipino workers because the pre-2015 reprieve was supposed to be only a one-time deal.
 
Filipinos and other workers in the U.S. territory of the CNMI will also see a 50 cents increase in minimum wage starting on Sept. 30 this year, or from the current $5.55 an hour to $6.05 an hour. 
 
A U.S. law requires an annual – later amended to become every-other-year – 50 cents increase in minimum wage in the CNMI until it reaches the U.S. federal wage floor of $7.25 an hour. — ELR, GMA News

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