Should We Tax Remittance Payments?

Hatuey said:

Ah, an admission that you submit to a backwards idea thrown away by constitutions, liberalism, and widespread human refusal to serfdom. This is progress for you, phattonez.

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I call myself a traditionalist for a reason. Your appeal to "progress" isn't convincing.

phattonez said:

I call myself a traditionalist for a reason. Your appeal to "progress" isn't convincing.

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You just admitted that your ideas should be defined as feudalistic because you rejected them being label as socialistic. Feudalism was rejected on a worldwide basis for a reason. That you have finally stopped calling them 'traditionalist' when there can be nothing 'traditional' about a system in decline by the Middle Ages, and instead referred to them as feudal, is progress. No need to hide. We can now begin to discuss why they don't make sense in the 21st century.

phattonez said:

Foreigners have no respect for our laws, and you wonder why Americans might be getting agitated about immigration.

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People are getting agitated about immigration because people are paying people to foment those feelings.

Its scapegoating.

According to them its immigrants keeping wages down.

As long as you believe that the real reasons will be ignored.

What if...? said:

People are getting agitated about immigration because people are paying people to foment those feelings.

Its scapegoating.

According to them its immigrants keeping wages down.

As long as you believe that the real reasons will be ignored.

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Where's my paycheck?

phattonez said:

Many immigrants (and their children) in the United States send money to relatives in foreign countries. Highlighted in the image below are some of the amounts sent to Latin American countries.

These are significant amounts that these countries are receiving. Many of these countries are highly dependent on these resources. Remittances to El Salvador, for instance, account for nearly 17% of her GDP.

How much are Americans sending overseas? In 2012, the amount was $120 billion.

Given the limited usefulness of this to Americans, the fact that foreign labor is already undercutting American employment, and that many foreign 3rd world countries are dependent on this money (and neglecting to build up their own economies as a result), ought we tax these payments to discourage such transfers?

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I just see any new tax scheme like this as creating another financial scam by which middlemen will fleece immigrants. I am also not sure how practical it could be in terms of actually collecting revenue given so many ways one could get around it.

backpacker said:

I just see any new tax scheme like this as creating another financial scam by which middlemen will fleece immigrants. I am also not sure how practical it could be in terms of actually collecting revenue given so many ways one could get around it.

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Have you seen the fees that transfer agencies charge? These people are already getting fleeced.

phattonez said:

Where's my paycheck?

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Shoulda negotiated better.

Maybe you need a union.

phattonez said:

Have you seen the fees that transfer agencies charge? These people are already getting fleeced.

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No I have not, but it would not surprise me if they are high. My mom used to be friends with someone who owned/ran a store that catered to Mexicans (basically illegals) and that was a pretty shady operation but I guess they trusted the Mexican store better than they did Western Union at the grocery store. I have no doubt those people were exploiting the Mexicans.

phattonez said:

Have you seen the fees that transfer agencies charge? These people are already getting fleeced.

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Western Union charges 10$ for 300$ sent to Mexico.
https://www.xoom.com/en-us/us/send-money/options/amount-to - Xoom charges 4.99$ for the same amount.
Moneygram charges 10$ for 400$ using a checking account, 20$ if you use a credit card.

Sending money across countries costs money, the government taxes those companies on their earnings. Why do you want to add another tax?

phattonez said:

I live in a state with both.

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Well I guess we have to fund local govt somehow.

This is a good argument that everyone should pay some income tax. Many of these people actually get money back from the rest of us who do pay because they qualify for the earned income tax credit (which is a misnomer, as it has nothing to do with earning anything; it's simply a giveaway). So the solution is everybody pays something.

As far as foreigners doing jobs that Americans won't do; that's crap. Americans will do ANY job, but not at $7 per hour. Americans aren't stupid. If we didn't have such a surplus of unskilled illegal immigrant labor willing to work for $5 per hour there would be a serious labor shortage in this country and we wouldn't be having a discussion about raising the minimum wage; it would rise in order to attract and compete for workers. You can't have millions of unskilled illegals AND good paying jobs at the same time. You get one or the other; you decide.

Before you blame employers for hiring low wage illegals, companies of all types must compete. If a few get an advantage by using illegals, then everybody has to use illegals, or some kind of cheap labor, or automate, or go offshore, or all of the above.

A hundred years ago most jobs were unskilled manual labor, and we needed all the warm bodies we could get. Those days are gone. We don't need anymore low skill workers; we grow enough of our own to meet our needs for manual labor workers. And there is actually an oversupply in many STEM fields; like engineering. Except for petroleum engineering and software engineering, most all the other engineering fields graduate an oversupply of new engineers. Even in the STEM fields a student has to choose wisely what he/she majors in.

What we have a huge shortage of is technicians, mechanics, tradesmen, and most types of people skilled in the areas that make everyday life possible. 3,000,000+ job openings in these good paying fields.

Which brings me to the jobs report. Most people are reading it wrong, especially the talking heads news people. So we added 200,000+ low paying jobs last month. What that should tell you is that's the jobs they could find available workers for; so the hires were made. The lack of hiring in the skilled and professional fields tells us that there weren't many qualified people looking for jobs. How many people you know with up-to-date skills are looking for jobs? Not many; if you are highly skilled, and under 50 years old (that's another story), you probably have a good job and don't need to look for work. So not many new hires in the skilled and professional levels of the job market.