point bonita lighthouse

Name and shame those jurisdictions that are the worst offenders in gouging travelers with excess taxes to fund their pet projects and irresponsible budgets. Many travelers are increasingly finding after working hard to use mileage/points and find the lowest fares for their air, hotel and car rental travel that they end up paying a high percentage of the actual travel services in taxes. There are now accounts that in some foreign jurisdictions that the taxes are higher than the actual travel services. Please use this thread to warn and be forewarned about the worst countries and cities that are tax traps targeting travelers.

This thread is a companion to the “Anyone Ready to Rebel Against Travel Taxes?” thread which approaches this issue from a macro perspective if you wish to explore this issue more broadly.

marble

With a business class ticket from SYD-LHR in November, you'll be paying $260 straight to the UK government in tax.

As for hotels, doesn't Denmark have a 25% tax rate on stays?

RustyC

Let's also not forget that certain companies like Priceline and Spirit Airlines try to hide their own fees in with taxes. If you bid on a hotel via Priceline in, say, Singapore, they might do an added slug for taxes and Priceline fees that could approach 25%. How much is really taxes and how much is Priceline keeping for itself? They won't provide a breakdown. And it's entirely possible that they've decided to take a higher amount for themselves for, say, bookings in foreign destinations than domestic ones. The practice is a deliberate one to try to thwart transparency. Spirit Airlines, for its part, invented a "Passenger Usage Fee" of $16 and included it with the "Taxes and fees" section (though with no disclosure that it's an AIRLINE-IMPOSED fee rather than a real tax.

As for the real, actual taxes, those are often bad as well. Seattle, Phoenix, Anchorage, Atlanta, Kansas City, Dallas and Houston have bad reputations for excessive car-rental taxes, though there are probably others.

There's a lot of greed, questionable ethics and cynicism-engendering behavior behind all of it. It makes a person wonder how much we've really progressed from the pikers and highwaymen of old.

jpatokal

Some states in India, most notably Delhi, levy taxes on hotel rooms calculated on the rack rate. At 12.5%, this means $50/night straight to the government, even on "free" award rooms at a typical Delhi hotel with $400/night rack rates

point bonita lighthouse

Any new accounts of outrageous taxes on travel? Any accounts about Seattle, London, Phoenix or other towns that are trying to build stadiums or other pet projects off the traveling community?

sbm12

Nope...only leaving the UK to you get hosed with the APD. Arriving into LHR doesn't have any particular tax payable to the Brits.

JerryFF

On a recent car rental in BOS, I paid about 60% of the base rental rate in various additional taxes and fees. PHX is pretty bad too.

RichardInSF

DFW is really bad on car rental taxes as well.

point bonita lighthouse

I wanted to refresh this thread. Anyone been particularly burned with excessive taxes and fees in their recent journeys?