Oklahoma is Taxing Remittances, Why has the Trump Administration been Slacking?

  |  
Jan 8, 2020

The Center for Immigration Studies reported on Oklahoma’s recent efforts to tax remittances.

Oklahoma is the only state in the Union to tax this sizeable outflow of money. Most of this money is produced by working illegal aliens, as well as legal immigrants and some drug dealers.

At the moment, the Sooner state places a fee of 1 percent on all outgoing wire transfers.

The fee acts as a withholding tax against the state income tax. However, for those who remit money and also pay income tax, this fee does not act as a tax. But due to the fact most of the transfers are outside of the state tax system, these fees act as a de facto tax on untaxed income.

It should be noted that there are not as many illegal aliens in Oklahoma compared to other states. CIS points out that if such fees were set nationally, at 2 percent for example, they would bring in more than $3 billion annually to the federal government. According to Pew Research Center estimates, 2017 remittances from America were more than $148 billion.

Sadly, Trump has not made any effort to implement a national remittance policy.

Conservative commentators such as Michelle Malkin lament this.

She tweeted, “Oklahoma continues to do what @realDonaldTrump promised he would do 3 yrs ago: tax remittances. Last year, OK collected $13 million fees on such money transfers. FYI: In 2018, nationwide remittances from illegal & legal alien workers in the US to Mexico totaled $34 billion.”

The Oklahoma State Tax Commission’s most recent report for the year 2018-2019, reveals wire transfer fee receipts of $13,147,000, which was an increase from the total $12,874,000 collected two years prior.

The only other state in which a similar fee is being considered is Georgia. An activist, D.A. King, is currently championing a remittance measure for is state, arguing that this would be an easier way to collect about $100 million annually without having to raise taxes on tax-paying voters. The Georgia Chamber of Commerce opposes this effort.

For the time being, it looks like states will have to pick up the slack for the federal government’s inaction on remittance policy.

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