HB 66 introduced in the state House of Representatives by Rep. Jeff Jones, R- Brunswick, employs a novel approach: It imposes a 2 percent withholding fee on wire transfers out of the country—which would include illegal aliens’ remittances to their homelands, drug trades and some legitimate, non-corporate money transactions.
The remittance fee would only involve individuals, not businesses. And Jones notes that this approach has already successfully worked in another state— Oklahoma.
Think about this: According to a report by the Pew Research Center, there are about 375,000 illegal aliens in Georgia, as opposed to an estimated 95,000 in Oklahoma. That would suggest a four-to-one ratio in this source of state income; but the Georgia rate would be 2 percent, not 1 percent as in Oklahoma. So the estimate is that Georgia’s fee income would be eight times that of Oklahoma, or a minimum of $100 million a year.
As pointed out by David North, a fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, “that estimate ignores the factor of Atlanta’s reputed role as a major hub of drug distribution; this creates a hard-to-estimate but sizeable illicit economy often involving wire transfers of funds.”
At the same time, there is a debate in the General Assembly on how to extend a budget-stretching pay hike for state law enforcement officers to cover underpaid local law enforcement personnel. Studies have shown that all too many local police are so badly paid that some are forced to get food stamps. One bill that passed, just for giving raises to the state police, will cost $80 million. As North points out, the proposed wire transfer fee would cover those costs and more.
HB 66 merits a hearing, especially since Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway has just endorsed this bill as a proven and logical revenue source for local law enforcement officer pay raises.
Jones is getting more co-sponsors and, as this is written, we learned that state Rep. Don Parsons, R-Marietta, signed onto the bill.
Jones and other HB 66 proponents also point out that the legislation is far better than a surcharge tax on auto insurance as recommended by the lieutenant governor’s legislative panel.
