Some well-connected folks in some states are beginning to see the usefulness of what Oklahoma, alone, has adopted: a state charge on worldwide transfers of cash by people, or remittances. Extra on the state-by-state actions in a subsequent posting.

States can increase substantial quantities of cash, normally with out imposing any taxes on law-abiding voters; the proposed price is usually 1 or 2 p.c of the cash despatched overseas. Who pays the charges? Normally it’s a mixture of unlawful aliens, some inexperienced card holders, and a few drug sellers with worldwide sources. The charges can be utilized to offset state revenue taxes, in order that they price nothing to individuals who duly file their state revenue taxes, a inhabitants that features few within the drug commerce.

A few of my readers could recall Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens”, people who have been stated to be abusing our welfare programs; he used them as damaging poster youngsters in his efforts to trim federally funded help applications, for higher or for worse.

I’m suggesting a comparable — however solidly researched — strategy to promoting a remittance charge program to conservative state legislators, stating how some particular person drug lords have used wire transfers to ship their illicit earnings overseas whereas failing to pay their state revenue taxes. Whereas the collective sum of money despatched abroad by unlawful aliens could also be extra to far more than the collective quantity despatched by drug lords (or perhaps vice versa, an inconceivable calculation), the drama of the transfers by the drug lords exceeds the monetary actions by the unlawful aliens.

So let’s go searching for the worldwide wire transfers of particular criminals in particular states to assist the concept of a modest remittance tax for all such transfers.

That is simpler stated than performed.

The primary and best job is to determine states which have each state revenue taxes and GOP-controlled state legislatures. Texas and Florida, for instance, have the latter however not the previous, and are thus out of the operating. My record of states with state revenue taxes and Republican legislatures, drawn from Google, follows: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma (which already has a remittance tax), South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Nebraska might be added to the record because it has a conservative however non-partisan unicameral legislature and a state revenue tax.

The second step can be to have a look at a pattern of the closed case data of drug lords in every of the listed states to see if the data we wish — cost of state revenue tax and use of wire transfers — was out there within the public report. I’m not a lawyer, however I believe that normally it is not going to be within the court docket data as the usage of wire transfers isn’t unlawful.

The third step can be to have a look at present instances on the indictment and the plea settlement ranges, and search via discovery and negotiation to get the wanted state revenue tax and wire switch info. This may be resisted by some prosecutors as additional work for them, however these particulars might be very useful in making the pro-remittance tax argument. I like the concept of drug lords being prosecuted as a result of, amongst different issues, they didn’t pay their revenue taxes.

The fourth and closing step can be for the remittance tax proponents to sift via the monetary paperwork, and form alarming case histories to dramatize their case. Two or three situations per state would do.