美国国家公共电台 NPR A Proposed New Tax, Mainly On Latinos, To Pay For Trump's Border Wall

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Let's follow up on one of President Trump¹'s signature campaign proposals. When he was running, he said that if elected he would build a wall along the southern border of the United States and get Mexico to pay for it.

New legislation has been introduced in Congress not to do precisely² that, not to make Mexico pay but to make migrants pay. It's a proposal to tax remittances⁴, money that migrants send back to their home countries. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports.

JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE⁵: Remittances are hugely important for the developing world. For some countries, remittances are the leading source of foreign capital. In Haiti for instance, they represent 28 percent of the country's overall gross domestic product. For Mexico, remittances bring in more cash each year than Mexico's vast oil fields.

RAFAEL VILLALOBOS JR.: When I send remittances to Mexico, it's typically to my parents.

BEAUBIEN: Rafael Villalobos Jr., who lives in eastern Washington state, says he sends a few hundred dollars each month to Mexico. His father, who's in his late 60s, has a small farm in the Mexican state of Michoacan. The farm generates some income, but Villalobos says the money he sends gives his parents stability.

VILLALOBOS JR.: It keeps them afloat, and it keeps my mom healthy. She is a type 2 diabetic, and so she has routine supplies that she has to purchase to continuously check her blood sugar and her prescription⁶ that she takes daily.

BEAUBIEN: A bill introduced in Congress by Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama called the Border Wall Funding Act of 2017 would put a 2 percent tax on the money Villalobos sends to his parents each month in Mexico. Another proposal in the Senate would place a 7 percent fine on remittances unless the senders can prove they're in the U.S. legally.

A tax of 2 or 7 percent might not sound like a lot, but Villalobos says he recently switched from using Moneygram to a remittance³ app called Remitly because it can save him about $10 on a $400 transfer. And he says 10 bucks⁷ goes a long way in Mexico.

VILLALOBOS JR.: That is essentially⁸ another couple days' worth of food sometimes depending on, you know, what you're buying.

BEAUBIEN: Villalobos is one of millions of people in this country who send remittances each month. Proposals to tax remittances are often framed as a way to tax immigrants who are in the country illegally. Villalobos, however, was born in the U.S. and is an American citizen. In the 1970s, his parents came up from Mexico to do agricultural work. Of their four children, Rafael and two of his siblings⁹ were born here. Villalobos says he grew up picking fruits and vegetables across much of the U.S.

VILLALOBOS JR.: When we were in Florida, it was tomatoes, melons, bell peppers, nothing with thorns. My dad despised the idea of going to pick limes and oranges.

BEAUBIEN: He finds the proposed remittance tax is offensive, particularly given that candidate Trump promised to lower taxes and cut government regulation.

VILLALOBOS JR.: I've already earned my money and paid taxes on it. And the whole thing with this administration is about not having to pay more taxes, but yet I have to pay an extra tax on money that I've already earned to give it to my parents just because they are coincidentally on the other side of the border.

BEAUBIEN: The 2 percent remittance tax being proposed by Congressman¹⁰ Mike Rogers applies to money being sent to Latin America and the Caribbean but nowhere else. China, India and the Philippines, which all actually take in more remittances each year than Mexico, aren't hit with a tax.

Congressman Rogers' office didn't respond to repeated requests for an interview about the bill. But Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies, a D.C. think tank that advocates for tighter border controls, says a remittance tax is long overdue¹¹.

MARK KRIKORIAN: There is a certain symmetry to having illegal immigrants underwrite part of the enforcement to prevent illegal immigration.

BEAUBIEN: And he says such a tax is an obvious place to look for new money for the border wall.

KRIKORIAN: Because the people who would be paying it are people who don't vote. I mean, they're not even citizens.

BEAUBIEN: It's fairly unusual for governments to tax outflows of cash. And these proposals do not apply to businesses moving money abroad. Itai Grinberg, an international tax lawyer at Georgetown Law school, says taxing outflows of cash is something that's usually done by leftist autocrats¹² like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez when the value of their local currency goes into a nosedive. A tax on cross-border payments, he says, is not something you'd normally see from a country like the U.S.

ITAI GRINBERG: From the perspective of a major developed economy, it would be very unusual.

BEAUBIEN: Several Gulf¹³ countries that rely heavily on migrant labor¹⁴, however, have recently proposed remittance taxes, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The World Bank has blasted the idea of these taxes, saying they hurt some of the poorest countries on the globe.

In addition, a World Bank report on the subject last month says remittance taxes are difficult to administer. And even if they are put in place, migrants are likely to find some other way to get their money home. Jason Beaubien, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF JON HOPKINS' "LOST IN THOUGHT")

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

3 remittance   

n.汇款，寄款，汇兑

参考例句：

• Your last month's salary will be paid by remittance.最后一个月的薪水将通过汇寄的方式付给你。
• A prompt remittance would be appreciated.速寄汇款不胜感激。

4 remittances   

n.汇寄( remittance的名词复数 )；汇款，汇款额

参考例句：

• He sends regular remittances to his parents. 他定期汇款给他父母。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Remittances sometimes account for as much as 20% of GDP. 在这些国家中，此类汇款有时会占到GDP的20%之多。 来自互联网

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 prescription   

n.处方，开药；指示，规定

参考例句：

• The physician made a prescription against sea- sickness for him.医生给他开了个治晕船的药方。
• The drug is available on prescription only.这种药只能凭处方购买。

7 bucks   

n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃

参考例句：

• They cost ten bucks. 这些值十元钱。
• They are hunting for bucks. 他们正在猎雄兔。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

9 siblings   

n.兄弟，姐妹( sibling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A triplet sleeps amongst its two siblings. 一个三胞胎睡在其两个同胞之间。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She has no way of tracking the donor or her half-siblings down. 她没办法找到那个捐精者或她的兄弟姐妹。 来自时文部分

10 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

11 overdue   

adj.过期的，到期未付的；早该有的，迟到的

参考例句：

• The plane is overdue and has been delayed by the bad weather.飞机晚点了，被坏天气耽搁了。
• The landlady is angry because the rent is overdue.女房东生气了，因为房租过期未付。

12 autocrats   

n.独裁统治者( autocrat的名词复数 )；独断专行的人

参考例句：

• Still, the widespread pessimism doesn't explain the relatively high scores enjoyed by the autocrats. 不过，普遍的悲观情绪并没有解释为何独裁者得到相对较高的分数。 来自互联网

13 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

14 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。