US Virgin Islands Bill to tax wire transfers denounced

A bill that had a provision adding a 4.5 percent fee to all bank wire transfers has been pulled from the Senate Public Safety, Homeland Security and Justice Committee.
The bill would have used funds from the wire transfer fee to pay for a 15 percent raise to hazardous-duty workers — such as police officers, firefighters or corrections officers.

According to Sen. Sammuel Sanes, the committee’s chairman, the Legislature’s legal counsel ruled that the bill violates the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. The committee was scheduled to consider the bill Monday.

The 4.5 percent fee would have been added to money transfers via wire services such as Western Union, as well as bank-to-bank wire transfer fees, and met strong resistance.

IAMTN: To be fair, this bill did not just hit money transfer companies – it also hit bank transfers. But it is another example of how in challenging times regulators can become very imaginative.