Report: White House weighing a tax on remittances to Mexico to fund border wall

[TheWPCTraveler]

For those asking, this would net out to around $1 billion a year, all other factors remaining constant.

Source: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/white-house-weighing-a-tax-on-remittances-to-mexico-to-fund-border-wall/article/2633089

President Trump is mulling a tax on cash transfers between immigrants in the U.S. and their relatives in Mexico as a way to fund his promised border wall without forcing American taxpayers to open their wallets, according to sources familiar with the proposal.

Trump first floated the idea of taxing or halting person-to-person wire transfers, known as remittances, during his bid for the White House. A two-page memo released by his campaign last April described a plan “to compel Mexico to pay for the wall” by preventing immigrants from wiring money outside of the U.S. unless they can prove their legal status to law enforcement authorities.

Because the Mexican economy has become so dependent on wages sent home by migrant workers, which surpassed oil revenues as its leading source of foreign income in 2015, Trump said he could convince the country’s leaders to make a “one-time payment of $5-10 billion” toward his border wall by threatening to stop the annual flow of billions of dollars from the U.S. to Mexico in the form of cash transfers.

In 2016, Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. sent $27 billion to family members and friends in their native country.

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If people think that this isn't enough to pay for the wall over the span of Trump's presidency, they are right. However, this can be used as leverage by the Trump administration for more favorable terms in any future trade agreements (current NAFTA renegotiations or bilateral trade negotiations should the former fail) with Mexico.