If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, as the old saying goes. As I wrote yesterday:
The DFL has been casting around for an issue to distract Minnesota’s voters from the epidemic of fraud, slow economic growth, high crime, rising energy bills, increased taxes, and declining schools. The plan seems to be some combination of gun control and immigration, the latter package being launched two weeks before the party’s agenda on “affordability.”
And, just as a tax hike is part of the party’s gun control pitch, another tax hike is part of its immigration pitch.
CBS News reports:
Operation Metro Surge is winding down, but there are still more federal immigration agents in Minnesota than normal.
Some Minnesota House Democrats think anyone who lived here over the course of the immigration enforcement action should pay state taxes.
…
On Wednesday, a bill in the House taxes committee would require those agents who weren’t Minnesota residents but made more than $15,000 in wages while working here to file a Minnesota tax return.
The Minnesota Department of Revenue estimates the change could bring in $600,000.
Democrats argue that the whole operation cost a lot in state and local resources, so these agents should pay their fair share.
“Minnesotans will effectively subsidize a federal enforcement operation that they did not request and that many do not support,” said Rep. Athena Hollins. “Moreover, enforcing this requirement sends an important message. Minnesota will not allow its tax base to be eroded by temporary federal deployments that shift costs on our communities.”
This measure is part of a package designed to prevent the federal enforcement of federal immigration laws in our state which are, CBS News reports, “top priorities for Democrats at the Minnesota Capitol this year.”
Whatever one things of the DFL’s focus on preventing the federal enforcement of federal immigration laws in our state, this tax is probably illegal in any event.
Minnesota taxes nonresident income, and that applies to federal government employees. Currently, a person needs to earn about $15,000 from Minnesota sources to be required to file and remit as a nonresident. That would apply to any ICE officers who are here long enough to meet that threshold.
But the bill — HF 3659 — creates separate treatment for immigration enforcement personnel, subjecting them to tax on the first dollar of their income. While Minnesota’s tax authorities can make federal law enforcement abide by the same rules they impose on everyone else, they cannot, legally, discriminate against them under 4 U.S.C. § 111. This permits state and local governments to tax the income of federal employees provided the law does not discriminate against those employees based on their federal source of pay. It states:
The United States consents to the taxation of pay or compensation for personal service as an officer or employee of the United States, a territory or possession or political subdivision thereof, the government of the District of Columbia, or an agency or instrumentality of one or more of the foregoing, by a duly constituted taxing authority having jurisdiction, if the taxation does not discriminate against the officer or employee because of the source of the pay or compensation.
Legally, this bill is a dud. If it is meant seriously, it will fall at the first legal challenge, if enacted. But, if it is meant as a piece of political theater in election year, we might not have heard the last of it.
