I disagree. Fees have to be justified and USCIS is not spending $100,000 to process a H1B applicant. They are raising revenue. Which is taxation.
Calling something a fee doesn't make it a fee if, in substance, it operates like a tax.
Calling something a fee doesn't make it a fee if, in substance, it operates like a tax.
In the NCTA case cited above, the Supreme Court upheld a law that authorized the FCC to impose “fees” on cable licensees that took into account the value of the license to the provider. So a fee need not be limited to the cost for an agency to process a license. A charge can be based on the value of the authorization or license provided and still qualify as a fee not a tax. FCC spectrum auctions are another example. The FCC charges billions of dollars for 4G/5G spectrum licenses. That’s based on value of the license to the licensees, not the cost of processing the licenses. Here, the $100k fee easily can be seen as reflecting the value to the employer of being able to hire the foreign worker.
https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/budget-planning-and-performan...
Do they? Honest question. Is there a law that says fees must be in some sense justified?
> Calling something a fee doesn't make it a fee if, in substance, it operates like a tax.
This seems like a nonsense response to GP. They gave a definition of fee vs tax that is based on a meaningful distinction and not what it happens to be called.
Read the opinion, it isn’t very long. This facet in particular is discussed in detail there.
> They gave a definition of fee vs tax that is based on a meaningful distinction and not what it happens to be called.
GP sounds likes he’s trying out for the inevitable appeal, the tax/fee distinctions argued in the case came from different case law.
The whole penalty thing seems weird because obviously it’s not a penalty, so I don’t know if the president’s lawyers argued a dumb point and lost or if I’m missing some legal nuance here.
Regardless, the opinion is based on the ruling that the fee amounts to a tax, not that fees must be justified.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.293...
> I don’t know if the president’s lawyers argued a dumb point and lost
They argued several dumb points, you’ll have to narrow it down.
> They argued several dumb points, you’ll have to narrow it down.
Arguing that the fee is a “penalty” in this case seems pointlessly dumb.
Seems like they should have argued the fee a “fee”.