OOOOk-lahoma! not only has the best state song in the nation, it also is the only state that collects taxes from its illegal aliens in a sensible and effective way — as the Oklahoma Tax Commission's annual report for 2014 reveals (p. 11).
It is widely agreed that many illegal aliens work in the underground (cash) economy and do not pay state and federal income taxes as a result. (Some do, of course, but a lot of money is missing).
Oklahoma does something about it. It has a 1 percent wire transfer fee that is collected on all personal wire transfers of cash to accounts outside the state. This past fiscal year it collected $10,502,470.17 from this source, up more than 7 percent from the previous year.
Not all of these receipts came from illegal aliens sending remittances to their home countries, of course, but a significant share came from this source.
What is particularly interesting about these receipts is that these fees are, in fact, withholdings for the state income tax — and thus a wire transfer fee costs nothing unless you fail to pay your state income taxes. But, as we reported about the state's finances in 2013, 96 percent of these moneys were not applied to state income tax returns, so Oklahoma has found a way to collect a tax that falls almost exclusively on tax evaders!
Can you think of a more attractive tax source for politicians? The vast majority of people paying the taxes are both illegal aliens (who cannot vote) and are tax evaders!
We figure that the federal government could collect one or two billion a year if it only followed the lead of the favorite state of Rodgers and Hammerstein.