Remittances are payments sent from one person to another, usually from one country to another. Remittances are non-commercial, so no goods are being traded.

Carrie Brandon Elliot reviews questions and action plans generated by the January 1 effective date of a 1 percent tax on remittances from the U.S. to foreign recipients.

IN TAPACHULA, a furnace of a city in southern Mexico, people line up inside an air-conditioned branch of Banco Azteca to process their remittances. Last year Mexicans received an estimated $24 billion ...