Tchiowa

While I don't think that $5 will be enough to change people's travel plans, the steady drip, drip, drip of taxes and fees will have an impact. But politicians don't care as taxes give them money to pay out to people and effectively buy their votes. This particular tax is inviting because the politicians can say that they are getting the money from outsiders. Never mind that it might hurt local businesses.

lhgreengrd1

Well, it might be enough to dissuade me from traveling to Georgia, except there was already enough for me to do that.

EVA777

Well this is definitely live. Was blindsided when I checked out yesterday. $15 of total tax on a $57 room.

MaxBuck

Never fails to amaze me that, at a time of low tax burden in the USA, we continue to see this kind of comment. We pay significantly less tax today as a % of income than we did in the 1980s.

pinniped

Fundamentally, I'm okay with lowering the tax burden on income and raising it on consumption. It's a more efficient way to collect tax.

My problem with some of these hotel (and more prevalent to date, rental car) taxes is that one locality can easily pass them knowing that the people paying the tax don't have any representation in the legislative process. It's politically easy for politicians to soak travelers and sell it to their own constituents as "we're getting other people to pay for our arena or football stadium", when all it does is escalate an arms race that has those constituents then paying for everyone else's arenas and football stadiums when they go elsewhere.

Seriously: I remember when Kansas City had its vote to do a full downtown renovation, including a new arena. It passed overwhelmingly - in big part because St. Louis spent a bunch of money opposing it and that pissed everybody off - and in big part because part of the campaign was "You're already paying these taxes in Phoenix, San Francisco, Chicago, etc. - so now we're getting ours." Rental car taxes in KC are now often in the 100% range. (But the downtown renovation is great...thanks everybody! )

So if Georgia is tacking on $5 per hotel room, does anyone think they're the *only* state who will do it? Georgia's getting their $5....we'd better get ours from all of those Atlanta people who travel to our state... @:-)

This has previously been mainly the realm of cities and counties. Add states to the mix, and it's just another layer of tax on top of a lot of rooms that already have these taxes.

Doc Savage

Typical tax to screw people who can't vote you out of office; look at all the municipalities who do this with car rentals.

Hotels will just add this on the bill as an extra tax.

I hate politicians.

EVA777

Yes. It was listed on my bill as:

State Hotel - Motel Fee - $5.00

Jane42

The county I live in - in NY - charges 3% on hotel/motel rooms and I remember what a backlash the county received when it was instituted.

Of course, it didn't matter.....

KRSW

Effective July 1st -- Event planners start to consider Florida instead of Georgia to host conventions.

/Not that Orlando doesn't have bed taxes as well...but every $ counts.

TravelerMSY

I would be delighted if hotel tax was only five dollars. I'm assuming you mean they're adding a new $5 tax on top of the roughly 20% tax on hotels already.

And sure it's "free" money from the perspective of locals who don't stay in hotels, but every city does it. All-in displayed pricing in the GDS would really help with this. Then high-tax areas would look relatively unattractive

Insulator-King

Another plus for using AirBNB. No outrageous taxes added.

Lake Forest

The high car rental taxes in Boston discourage me from renting a car there.

Eastbay1K

Um, think again. Compliance with State and Local tax regulations is coming to a state/city near you, if it hasn't yet.