New tourist car tax from next year

[N8]

http://travel.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,7445,1600687,00.html

Tourists to the Spanish Balearic islands will have to pay a controversial new tax next year which, travel agents say, will accelerate the steep decline in visitors.
Mallorca, Ibiza, Menorca and Formentera will charge visitors who hire a car up to €5 (£3.40) a day in an attempt to raise an extra €12m in local taxes. The tax will affect many of the 4 million British people who visit every year, adding up to £50 to the cost of a two-week holiday.

Travel agents said the tax would drive away tourists who are increasingly turning their backs on what has been one of Britain's favourite holiday spots. "We have seen a fairly substantial drop in bookings to the Balearics over the last few years because they are no longer regarded as a good value destination," a spokesman for the Association of British Travel Agents said. "This move will encourage that perception and is extremely short-sighted."

Unlike previous attempts to tax tourists visiting Spain, the new tax is not designed to be spent on repairing damage to the environment; instead it will help decrease an annual overspend on health services.

The Balearic islands government scrapped a euro-per-day "eco-tax" on tourists, claiming it was damaging a sector that provides much of the islands' wealth. However, this has not boosted holiday bookings: package holiday bookings from Britain were down 16% this year as tourists sought cheaper destinations such as Turkey and Croatia. Bookings for this winter are currently some 17% lower.

 

[Morbyd]

5 euros a day? Outrageous. I only paid $22 Euros/day for my rental car this year. That amounts to a 23% tax

 

[silvia]

Most touristic countries tax tourists who, besides spending money in the place, they do use services and infrastructures. I don't understand why it's always so controversial when it's about the Balearic Islands

Of course, a 23% increase it's an exageration

 

[mikkak]

I am with Sil here.

 

[Morbyd]

Of course, a 23% increase it's an exageration

No, it's not an exaggeration.

5 / 22 = .227 = 23%

As for taxing tourists, it's basically a double-tax. Hotels, restaurants, car rental firms, etc. are already taxed on their income, which comes from the tourists, so you can't say that tourists don't pay (indirectly) for the services they use.

Futhermore, I don't think it's logical to say that, just because somewhere else there might be a specific tax, that no one should complain if that tax is instituted elsewhere.

 

[silvia]

Of course, a 23% increase it's an exageration

No, it's not an exaggeration.

5 / 22 = .227 = 23%

As for taxing tourists, it's basically a double-tax. Hotels, restaurants, car rental firms, etc. are already taxed on their income, which comes from the tourists, so you can't say that tourists don't pay (indirectly) for the services they use.

Futhermore, I don't think it's logical to say that, just because somewhere else there might be a specific tax, that no one should complain if that tax is instituted elsewhere.

Morbyd, I meant it's a high increase, an exagerated increase.

 

[mikkak]

Well, this is because you don't live in the Balearic island all year. You see, I think you don't know the amount of money that people who lives here have to pay everyyear because of the rubbish incinerator ( rubbish that most of it is not produced in the winter but in the summer), the building of roads because we can cope with cars( the bloody motorway they building everywhere), the health services that collapses in the summer and had to be payed by us, the lack of watter, the ecologic disaster we have over here. This tax is money that the goverment wants to assign to the health services. And you would say that people who lives in Balearic islands live from tourism but since a few of years ago most of the money is for tour operators and that the complementary services are having hardly anything because there is an amount very higth of everything included.

 

[Morbyd]

OK, but there's still a lot of tax revenue from the tourism, which should cover the costs of those tourists.

If that tax revenue is being used for services for year-round residents, then perhaps the government is ineffectively using the tax money it already receives from year-round residents.

 

[mikkak]

I do not know what they do with all the money we pay, I am sure that, ofcourse like everywhere, there is allways a part of taxes that are used in a useless way but you don't really can imagine the amount of things we have to pay because of the visitors. Plus that we live in an island and our resources are little and as I said before now a days there is a lot of our tourism that comes with all included so the only ones that really wins are touroperators. Because restaurants, shops etc don't take anything and pay just the same. I was a fan of the ecotasa and btw is not that it has anything to do wit this topic but I am against the motorway and many ecological atrocities I have tu put up with over here.
cheers Morbyd