Remittance blow?
Diaspora rep says don’t expect strong opposition to proposed US law to tax remittances
Don’t expect “strong” opposition from the Jamaican diaspora in the United States to legislation proposed to tax remittances sent to countries like Jamaica, Irwine Clare, a key New York member, said. The tax would be used to fund the wall President Donald Trump campaigned on and insists will be built at the US border with Mexico to curb illegal immigration.
DON’T EXPECT “strong” opposition from the Jamaican diaspora in the United States to legislation proposed to tax remittances sent to countries like Jamaica, Irwine Clare, a key New York member, said.
The tax would be used to fund the wall President Donald Trump campaigned on and insists will be built at the US border with Mexico to curb illegal immigration.
Republican congressman from Alabama, Mike Rogers, introduced the ‘Border Wall Funding Bill’ on March 30. It is to amend the Electronic Fund Transfer Act by requiring a charge of two per cent on the US-dollar value of any money being sent to Jamaica and 43 other countries covering Latin America and the Caribbean.
Many of those countries, including Jamaica, have poor populations that depend heavily on remittances. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Kamina Johnson Smith is “on top of this”, state minister in the finance ministry, Fayval Williams, said, adding that she will allow the minister to speak on Jamaica’s response.
NOT SURPRISED
Clare, meanwhile, said he was not “surprised” at the proposed law, because with Mexico making it clear to Trump that it would not fund the wall, it was “obvious” the idea to tax remittances would have been entertained.
“The president did say that Mexico will pay for the wall one way or another. And, he recognised that immigrants send home billions of dollars,” the managing director of the Caribbean Immigration Services in New York told The Gleaner.
He said the diaspora groups will oppose it, even with the US House of Representatives and Senate in Republic hands, though a “strong opposition” should not be expected. “People may disagree with me on this, but if we have not been more aggressive on the immigration front, I don’t see a whole lot of issues taking place on this front. I don’t expect a major pushback.”