Even at 1%, the new tax will hang on African immigrants who return money home

A new tax on versions that should start in the new year has a university student in shock from the implications she will have for her family in Nigeria.

Edidiong Chrys, a second -generation American Nigerian, said that she thought that the 1% tax was adopted as part of President Donald Trump “Big, nice bill“Would directly affect the financial rescue buoy which it sends abroad. This tax will be applied to all those in the United States which send money abroad.

“We regularly send money home to support dear beings, including our elders, our children at school, newborns and others in need,” she said.

Chrys, 38, said that some of the funds sent home have gone to new parents in his family, helping to reduce the cost of food and travel to the doctors’ appointments. The funds also help his uncle, who has a job but must also pay his five daughters, who are all at school. He and his wife work, but it is still not enough “to adapt to everything that needs to keep the household,” said Chrys.

And then there is the 80-year-old Chrys grandmother, who went back pain when Chrys visited in January.

“We pay for the nurse to live to help her during the week,” she said. “It is an additional expense that we must have for her so that she does not look.”

The tax applies to anyone to the United States which sends funds to its country of origin. In 2023, the United States’s shipments totaled $ 98 billion, According to the World Bank. Chrys contributes to $ 56 billion In funding, sub -Saharan Africa received people around the world last year. In fact, she said that she regularly puts money – more than 50 times a year – to family and friends.

The Center for Global Development, a non -partisan reflection group which focuses on reducing global poverty through economic research, has published a analysis Last month, which listed the tax as another financial setback for many nations, given the recent reduction in American aid.

Liberia strongly depends on foreign aid as well as funding. In 2023, the United States represented a quarter of the country’s foreign aid and the funding of funds exceeded three times the bilateral foreign aid of Liberia.

The outgoing ambassador of the African Union in the United States, Hilda Suka-Mafudze, said that the entry of this funding “threatens to reverse the financial inclusion and development gains through the continent of Africa”.

Witney Schneidman, a non -resident stock market of the Africa Growth Initiative on the World Economy and Development Program of Brookings Institution, said: “Putting this tax is simply another constraint on the American effort to work with our partners on the continent.”

“It is not transformational. … It’s just another obstacle to partnership, and it is another obstacle to development,” he said.

Schneidman, who was also deputy assistant secretary to African Affairs of the Clinton administration, sentenced the Trump administration for barriers and not bridges.

“When you add it with the visa blockages, with the end of the (African Growth and Opportunity Act) AGOA, with the end of the USAID, it is not enough to build a wall,” he said. “The United States is building a wall between itself and the world and certainly between itself and Africa.”

Suka-Mafudze, whose objective will turn to the region of the development community of southern Africa, said that beyond the injury of diplomatic links, blocking funds is also “a human problem, because sending of the diaspora are living lines for millions of African families and these funds often cover essential elements, which are food care, medical care, And to impose a tax on this subject is profoundly not adjusted ”.

Chrys said that the financial burden on sending money is already heavy, with limited resources stretched to reach both ends.

“Some people do not do as much so that they can try to support their family at home,” said Chrys. “When I am lucky to send money at home, sometimes I spend it from my refund check.”

Democratic representatives. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida and Jonathan L. Jackson de l’Illinois new The legislation called African Diaspora Investment and Development Act, or AIDA, aimed to reverse the impact of the tax. This would also create more transparency in money transfers, among others.

Suka-Mafudze supports legislation, warning the new tax “could push people to informal or unregulated channels, making transactions more risky and less transparent”.

Cherfilus-McCormick, the only US Haitian member of the Congress at the moment, warns that a tax on funds will unjustly be able to families who already have trouble supporting their loved ones abroad.

“I firmly oppose any effort to impose funds and I will continue to combat policies that protect the communities of immigrants and the diaspora,” she said in a statement. “HR4586 – AIDA intends to reverse the course and rather focus on incentive and draw on nearly $ 100 billion than Haitian, African and Caribbean Americans refer home every year to establish sustainable partnerships and strengthen economic development.”

Schneidman said that the tax had the potential to have an impact on education, health care and families because most of the funding is from the family to the family.

This reality is most felt by those who send money, who see first of all how small amounts can make a big difference.

“In the United States, you might have the impression:” Oh, it’s nothing. “” Said Chrys. But in Nigeria, “that’s all because each small money counts.”