Conservative Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby rightly decries a pernicious provision in Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill":
Buried near the end of the ludicrously named "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" approved by the House Budget Committee over the weekend is a new 5 percent tax on remittances [now reduced to 3.5%], the gifts of money that tens of millions of foreign-born US workers regularly send to family members abroad.
As a rule, Republicans promote themselves as the party of lower taxes. Indeed, a key goal of the "big, beautiful" legislative package is to permanently extend the tax cuts passed by Congress in 2017 and signed by President Trump during his first term….
But it's a different story for immigrants sending some of their hard-earned wages to loved ones in their homelands.
Tax cuts may be important to the GOP brand, but these days so is ill will toward migrants. A new tax on remittances would generate some revenue for the federal government, but as with so many of the administration's actions, its primary purpose is to make life more difficult for immigrants….
