Paying "holiday tax"

Pollycat

greenface wrote: »

More of a rant than a question but there is a question in there too. We do a fair bit of travelling mainly around Europe . Hotel tax or tourist tax abroad payable at the desk at check in . it all adds up to a fair chunk of money added to the fair chunk of money I spend in their city or country . depending on the star of the hotel it rises too, from memory we have paid around 40 euros in crete similar Tenerife , long weekends in barcalona . Bratislava . Vienna . all this year alone . We are off to turkey kusadasi next week we have paid £20 each for the tourist visa online . are we going to get rammed for more at their hotel on arrival . booked this through jet2 and they do not say we do . Or is the tourist visa we have bought to cover this ? My second part is do people from other countries visiting this fine land of ours pay any sort of tourist taxes . Say the countries named above . Is there a tax payable within the uk ? I cannot say I have noticed or ever asked it ,

40 euro?
It depends on the rating of the accommodation.
We are going to Crete.
We will pay 50 cents per room per night.
A total of 7 euros for a 2 week stay.

suki1964

Tax the wealthy we demand

And in your case its happening

You have the solution in your own hands, don't go to places where they impose a tourist tax or don't go so often

ibizafan_2

We’ve been paying the Balearic tourist tax for the last three years. This year it was around €74 for two of us for a two week holiday in a four star hotel. Not a deal breaker for us and it would never stop us going.

TELLIT01

Try staying in a hotel in many of the major tourist resorts in the USA. There you will be hit with a 'resort fee' for use of their facilities. That has to be paid whether you use these facilities or not and can be 10s of dollars per night. That is a rip off and has resulted in us changing our holiday plans. I have absolutely no problem paying 1 or 2 euro per night.

greenface

Thanks for the replies . I pay a good deal to get there and spend above and beyond what I spend when I am at home so our contribution to the local economy is already covered . It seems to me a charge for choosing them . Maybe I should choose places that do not implement extra charges , does anyone know if we are going to get slapped for a tourist tax on arrival in kusadasi ? at the start ive said I'm venting this and interested to know about when the uk will start this . How about this . We often stay in a hotel when we go out for the night local , save the trouble of getting home in a cab ( its about £30 in a cab . hotel is around £50/60 inc parking). Am I a tourist in my own city ? I already pay my local taxes for bins and police . its not Edinburgh York or bath but a tourist hotspot in the uk ,

daveyjp

It doesn't happen in the UK because we still have a very national and centralised taxation system. The concept of ring fenced local taxes isn't how we operate. Even Council Tax which is levied locally are set around national laws.

This is changing with Business Improvement Districts taxes, Congestion Charges and the possible introduction of local tourism taxes, but all these have needed or will need legislative changes.

PompeyPete

maman wrote: »

I agree. I've willingly paid all over Europe. My understanding is that the money goes directly to the locality to promote tourism.

In this country, local authorities have had their budgets cut so much that they can barely afford to fund their statutory obligations like social services so tourism is well down the pecking order. Funds are needed for maintaining historic buildings just as one example.

To answer OP's question. No tourist tax that I've been asked for in Turkey.

ETA : A visitor visa for a Turk to come to UK costs £93.

'Sin' Tax on booze in Turkey, and British tourists are quite sinful.:)

99% of British tourists return home immediately after their holiday. Not so with many Turkish 'tourists' who disappear under The Radar, hence the need to vet their visa applications to make sure they're genuine tourists.

NoodleDoodleMan

The tourist tax proposed in Edinburgh (for example) will be levied on UK citizens as well I'm thinking.

Visitors who come here put zillions of pounds into local economies - including 20% VAT where applicable - and provide jobs right across the tourist industry, taxing them even further is a retrograde step IMO.

IvanDP

NoodleDoodleMan wrote: »

The tourist tax proposed in Edinburgh (for example) will be levied on UK citizens as well I'm thinking..

The tourist/city tax in most, if not all city's is levied on domestic visitors as well as foreigners as far as i know.