More tourism taxes

[leilanidude]

Hawaii piles on the tourist taxes... Totals from all of the various taxes can hit 18.7% on rooms.

snippets:

"Under the new bill, visitors to the islands will pay a 0.75% tax on their hotel and short-term rental stays, and cruise ships that dock in Hawaiʻi will apply the same tax to their travelers as well."

"The governor's office estimates that the law will bring in over $100 million in revenue to the state, which will be put toward environmental projects across Hawaiʻi, conservation efforts, and initiatives to help make the state's infrastructure more resilient to rising global temperatures."


https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawmakers-mov...05176.html

[MyManao]

Hawaii piles on the tourist taxes... Totals from all of the various taxes can hit 18.7% on rooms..

Sheesh.. that's nothing.. slap da buggahs with 100%.. 200%.. and charge 'em double if they are of a certain party affiliation. Triple if they stay at a B&B. That's how the big boys do it.. so why not us?

[kalakoa]

Cruise lines have already indicated they will pursue legal action. Should be entertaining.

[leilanidude]

My expectation was that kalakoa would be pointing out the "studies" that would have to be done to determine how to spend the money,

[Punatang]

I like to think of them as Big Beautiful Tourist Tariffs. Go Josh.  

The bugs are the features.

Fewer visitors, that will spend more and stay on the designated path, is the endgame.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

The good news, the state isn’t putting the tax on residents (unless you’re playing tourist).
It’s also not a regressive tariff tax, taking money from those least able to afford it.  It is a discretionary tax, if you can afford a vacation you can probably afford a slightly higher tax rate.

It’s also a transparent tax as the governor doesn’t seem to want to hide it and punish companies that show who’s paying it and where it’s going on the customer receipt.

[ironyak]

No, Edge, it's all the same if you ignore the details, nuance, and meaning of words. You just lack the imagination needed to override reality.

kalakoa - Cruise lines have already indicated they will pursue legal action. Should be entertaining.

Agreed - cruise line industry trying to invoke constitutional principles via the Tonnage Clause in the U.S. Constitution. While the buffets and cruiser ship passengers can be quite large, the fee isn't based on weight but is a "head tax" which several states already utilize, as I understand it (and which the cruise industry previously sued over and lost). Can shear the whales on a equal basis, no matter their size, and release them back to the wild, in a sustainable fashion. Now only if the fees collected actually paid for the full cost of their environmental damages - guess that'll have to wait for the future lawsuits like those against Big Oil.

https://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Trav...-in-Hawaii (May 16th)
"A battle may be brewing over a new 11% tax on cruise lines in Hawaii after the cruise industry warned state officials that it considers the legislation a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The state legislature signed off on a bill May 2 that would for the first time tax cruise lines, based on the number of days their ships are docked in Hawaii, with the proceeds then funneled toward environmental causes. The legislation also increases the existing Transient Accommodations Tax applied to short-term rentals and hotels from 10.25% to 11%.

The fee will be burdensome to both cruise lines and their passengers, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings said, with Hawaii's per-passenger port fees and taxes expected to increase from $200 to $350. And several travel advisors and policy experts said they anticipate the tax could be a tourism deterrent. " (more at link)

[MyManao]

Fewer visitors, that will spend more and stay on the designated path, is the endgame.

In the '80s, when Chris Hemmeter defied the courts and built the Hyatt Regency Waikoloa, we were told over and over that the plan was destination hotels that would minimize the tourists impact on our way of life. Literally we were promised minimal impact from tourism in exchange for our prized beaches. 

But what happened? Did the tourist industry stay in South Kohala? No. Now it's insidiously infecting every neighborhood on the island.

Methinks the tax should be phenomenally high. Especially for B&Bs. You want to come here and swagger around you should pay the price. We, locals, should live tax free as long as we have to have transients staying in houses in all our subdivisions. Seriously, look what they've done in places of interest. Until they were stopped thousands were descending into Waipio daily and many with no aloha at all. They are, by their nature, out of control, and the way of life we all loved is gone.

So yeah, make 'em pay!

[leilanidude]

Especially for B&Bs. You want to come here and swagger around you should pay the price. We, locals, should live tax free as long as we have to have transients staying in houses in all our subdivisions.
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Would much rather have a tourist staying next door than a methed up local with roosters, junk cars, trash in the yard, etc. When I lived in VacationLand in the late 90's, it was pretty pleasant.

[ironyak]

Well, not every place can live up the standards of Texas and Florida... (don't you have some women's rights to restrict and climate change acknowledgement to be stricken from the law?) May suck to be us, but perhaps a higher tax on part-timing out-of-state owners of second and third homes will help pay for the needed improvements - they're basically tourists anyway! ;)