No tax is a beneficial tax especially when government doesn't cut back on the things they should not be doing. Whoever said tourism was the domain of government?
Why government, Julia, government.
F.A. Hayek put it best in his book, Road to Serfdom. Taxation is the road.
The hotel occupancy tax is like every other tax whether it is on a certain segment of individual's or spread across the board such as a sales tax on goods and services.
Used by government to create more programs, such taxes merely suck the lifeblood out of the area.
Once you allow another tax, somehow and someway, what happens, other costs of providing a service go up.
Hotels which have to impose and collect the tax won't suffer the cost. As any good businessperson knows, they've got to survive or go bankrupt. So the hotel as a business will raise the cost of the room, and other costs such as providing towels will go up, too.
That's how taxation works. Taxation is the road. To serfdom.
As these costs go up, what will happen? The wages of the hotel's personnel won't rise. Employees won't have more money in their pockets to spend and encourage the economy to grow by that spending.
The county is already in a distressed condition. Perpetually so, it seems. So tax somebody more to get more revenue for yet another program run by government or quasi-government which depends on tax dollars to survive.
That's exactly what doesn't work. Never has never will.
The hotel tax will put a damper on the local economy, not stimulate the local economy.
For that reason alone board members Vincent Zapotosky and Vincent Vicites should rethink positions on adopting the local hotel occupancy tax.
Let private enterprise do what it does best. Provide the best hotel and service it can and as more outsiders/tourists come into the area because of that, the other businesses in the area such as restaurants benefit.
Whenever you tax something, guess what, you get less of it, not more.
(Net the Truth Online)
Principle No. 4 summary: Does this tax generate revenue in a fair manner?
The Principle of Fair Revenue Generation maintains that it is unreasonable to assess special fees or levies on specific goods or services. This proposal places a special fee on a specific service, and therefore does not generate revenue in a fair manner.
http://traveltax.msu.edu/taskforce/case1_principals.htm
Hotel Occupancy Tax
http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/061/chapter38/chap38toc.html
Who's exempt?
Ambassadors, ministers and consular officers of foreign governments.
Fayette may OK hotel room tax
02/05/2008
Updated 02/04/2008 10:00:23 PM EST
Fayette County may be on its way to enacting a hotel room tax that could generate more than a half-million dollars annually and save the county a $20,000 a year payment to a tourism agency.
Fayette County Commission Chairman Vincent Zapotosky and Commissioner Vincent A. Vicites recently met with tourism officials to discuss the possibility of enacting a hotel occupancy tax, and Zapotosky said he plans to place the issue on the monthly February meeting for a vote. If enacted, the county could impose a tax on hotel rooms of up to 3 percent, the proceeds of which would be used for tourism promotion at the discretion of the board of commissioners.
Zapotosky said last week's meeting ended up being a "good informal discussion" and plans are to come up with a proposal and get it passed.
Zapotosky said there have been some "creative ideas for the use of our share."
Vicites said he believes enacting the tax is in the best interest of the county because the majority of the state's 67 counties already have such a tax.
"There are only two other counties that don't have it," Vicites said.
Commissioner Angela M. Zimmerlink, who said she was against the tax during the campaign and who did not attend the meeting, is still against it, but said she will do her part to ensure the distribution of any grant funds is fair.
"The hotel tax is bad economics because money is better off circulated through the economy instead of being removed in the form of taxation and redistributed by bureaucratic agencies," Zimmerlink said.
Although she is against implementation of the tax, Zimmerlink said she would do her part to ensure politics doesn't play a role in selecting grant recipients.
"While I do not support this new tax I realize that my two fellow commissioners will pass it so I have to do my part in assuring fairness and non-preselective disbursements," Zimmerlink said.
"My fellow commissioners should also publicly explain their education component because it has been said that a percentage of the hotel tax revenue may be given to a local education institution to develop a new program," Zimmerlink said. "The uses of the hotel tax proceeds should be distributed in the manner my fellow commissioners voiced during their campaigns and explain any position changes."
http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19262837&BRD=2280&PAG=461&dept_id=480247&rfi=6
No comments:
Post a Comment