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It does seem a little strange to charge tourists extra when the goal is to attract more tourists.
Assuming that we want to keep the current scope of public services in Canada (and on the whole I think we do), and we want to encourage visitors, then it is Canadian citizens that will have to pay the tax bill. That means more emphasis on income tax and/or property tax and less on sales taxes, hotel taxes etc. Are we prepared to redistribute the tax burden from sales to income?
Below is Wally Martin's additional clarification points on his submission just received;
There are actually 3 taxes that affect American Tourists:
1. The elimination of the GST rebate program as of April 2007 by the Harper Government will be additional 6% tax that Americans will no longer get refunded. The effect is additional 6% for all foreign visitors.
2. Tourism BC is asking to increase the Tourism BC tax from 1.65% to 3% . This is part of the present 8% Hotel Tax. See page 21 of the Tourism BC annual report (not the PDF page21).
3 The hated 2% Municipal Hotel room tax presently before Langley Township Council.
LFP EDITOR - So what Wally is saying is that American Tourists don't like our high taxes and are staying away and the Tourism Bureaucrats consider that the only solution is to raise taxes even more! Wally, given this Township Council's track record on taxes and tax hikes, odds are they will go ahead and add this Langley Hotel tax in any event! This is a mere pittance for them compared to a 77% increase in Langley Municipal taxes planned over the next ten years!
My family and in laws have tried to get that refund before. It too about six months and they were given only a portion of what they understood they were entitled too without explanation. I very much doubt that a significant number of visitors ever receive a full refund, even out of those that apply.
I'd love to see some statistics for different countries on how much tax is available in percentage and absolute terms to different levels of government.
My feeling is that we need more money at local level handed down from Provincial and Federal levels. It is a question of priorities. There needs to be more lobying for redistribution of taxes collected at higher levels of government down to the local level where it is needed.
Wally is on the right track. The province should remove all taxes from hotel operators that are for the purpose of tourism promotion. Through present or future hotel organisations, money can be spent on tourism and advertising where the biggest bang can be had for the buck.
Government just slows down the process, while costing more to achieve less. Sounds familiar doesn't it?
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