posted
Do people in Puerto Rico pay federal income taxes?
And did anyone else try to pronounce the name of that territory "Pyurto Rie-so" the first time they saw it printed as a child?
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Second question: I probably heard it long before I saw it because my aunt, uncle, and cousins lived there for a few years when I was pretty young. I'd ask them about the taxes, but I think the majority of them are in Japan right now. (I'm so jealous, they all homeschooled and travelled around the world as they grew up. On the other hand, I think they're involved in some sort of a cult. )
Posts: 1547 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
I always heard it they don't pay income taxes. The trade off being they don't get to vote for the president. They do get to elect Congressmen.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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They don't pay a literal tax the way that we do. The rationale is that as they are not a state they shouldn't have to.
However. the US government unlawfully seized large swathes of land when they colonized/conquered PR, and the US receives a lot of revenue from that land. Conveniently, most of this land was prime sugar cane land, and the majority of processed sugar in the world comes from that area. The US has either leased that land to major American companies or has utilized it themselves, and the monies earned far outweighs the amount of taxes that would be garnered. PR is largely rural, and very poor in comparison to the US. Most of it's citizens would not owe taxes even if was to become a state.
The US has made concessions to PR due to the manner in which it was colonized, and PR gave up it's legal right to protest the taking of it's lands. Overall the US has profited more than PR has by that deal.
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