America's mother country is now a cautionary tale
- Thread starter Diogenes
- Start date
My "next" pilgrimage to Greenway House will be my first, dummy. And you forgot these words: "if local authorities decide to implement it..."
Let me know IF it passes.
So you say. It'll be more expensive, either way.
Did I?
Read it, and weep:
Sometime next year you will book a couple of nights away in England, and there will be a line on the bill you have not seen before. You did not vote for it. You have no say over the amount. And you have no way of discovering whether the mayor who set it spent a penny of it on anything to do with your visit – because nothing obliges him to. That is the overnight visitor levy, announced on Thursday. The striking thing is not the tax itself. It is that ministers have decided they can take the risk of letting local authorities raise whatever they want through it.
When the Thatcher government introduced the poll tax in the late 1980s, it did at least one sensible thing: it kept the power to cap it, and used that power often during that benighted tax’s short life. Andy Burnham thinks he can manage without it. Let’s see how long that lasts.
We don’t need a new tax at all, of course. According to Dan Neidle of Tax Policy Associates, Britain now has somewhere between 85 and 90 different taxes – though we may be grateful we are still short of France’s 300-plus. And once these mini-sectoral taxes exist, the rates only ever go one way. Air Passenger Duty on a flight to America began at £10, about £25 in today’s money. It is now over £100. Who seriously believes the “tourist tax” will go in a different direction?
Actually, we should not call it the “tourist tax” at all. “Overnight visitor levy” is the correct name, and it is important to use it, because it is not a tax on tourists. It is a tax on anyone who spends money to sleep anywhere but their own home. British or foreign, business or leisure: everyone pays. It is a tax on mobility as much as on hospitality. The only way to avoid it is to stay at home, which one suspects is what the Government would prefer we all did anyway.
Some living in areas particularly heavily frequented by tourists may find the idea superficially attractive. And others may imagine the tax will be trivial. Until now people have mostly shrugged this sort of thing off as one more irritating but insignificant impost on ordinary life. Visitors to Mr Burnham’s metro Manchester paradise have paid £1 a night since 2023, plus VAT – a tax on a tax. But an uncapped tax is another matter altogether, and the hospitality industry, already reeling from blow after blow at the hands of this Labour Government, is right to be alarmed.
We are told regional mayors and devolved authorities can be trusted to behave responsibly. Well, count me a bit sceptical. British local government’s record on spending is not exactly a hymn to prudence. That is precisely why central government has spent years capping and absorbing local spending – a process Mr Burnham dislikes, which is why he now proposes to let local authorities spend away as they wish.
The assumption behind all this is either that people going away already spend so much that a little more won’t matter, or that the hospitality business can simply swallow the cost. But it really doesn’t work like this, because what happens at the margin is what counts.
How do people respond when a hotel room costs more? Some of them stop booking. Set aside luxury hotels and stays tied to a fixed event, where the customer has little choice, and the evidence suggests a 5 per cent price rise – a perfectly plausible levy in many areas – cuts overnight stays by something like 2 to 4 per cent.
So if a hotel passes the tax straight on, it loses those bookings: £100 of revenue becomes £96 or £98. If it absorbs the tax instead, the loss simply crystallises in a different way, because it must still hand the council £5 out of every £100.
A typical hotel runs on a margin of around 10 per cent, with costs fixed in the short run, though increasing fast of late. Take £3 or £4 off the profit on £100 of revenue, and between a third and a half of that profit has gone. That money was next year’s refurbishment or an extra member of staff. Now it is going to the council instead.
This Government doesn’t understand any of this, because almost none of its members have run a business or even worked in the private sector. They are used to activities run by the state or by NGOs (which amounts to much the same thing nowadays) where the money just appears. Meanwhile, many Leftist councils are rubbing their hands at a new pot of cash, paid by people who don’t live in their area and cannot vote against them, and which they need not spend on anything that improves tourism at all.
As a citizen, you will rarely notice the tax itself. But you will notice the effects. Travelling in Britain will feel that bit more expensive. Holidaying abroad will look cheaper still. There will be slightly fewer hotels and Airbnbs as some give up the ghost, and those that survive will be that bit shabbier.
The poll tax died because it made a great many voters angry with the people who had set it. This levy is designed so that never happens. The bill falls on visitors, who cannot vote in the elections that fix the rate and cannot see where the money goes. That is exactly why it appeals to Leftist politicians and bureaucrats. And every such new stream of painless money buys another year in which nobody has to decide what the state should stop doing. So this visitor levy will not be the end of the story – not until we have a government that is willing to change course and start saying no.
This isn’t a tourist tax. It’s worse than that
It also targets Britons who spend money staying anywhere in England but their own home
www.telegraph.co.uk
It doesn't have to "pass", silly.
Pass, implement, enact... same thing.So you say. It'll be more expensive, either way.
Did I?
Read it, and weep:
Sometime next year you will book a couple of nights away in England, and there will be a line on the bill you have not seen before. You did not vote for it. You have no say over the amount. And you have no way of discovering whether the mayor who set it spent a penny of it on anything to do with your visit – because nothing obliges him to. That is the overnight visitor levy, announced on Thursday. The striking thing is not the tax itself. It is that ministers have decided they can take the risk of letting local authorities raise whatever they want through it.
When the Thatcher government introduced the poll tax in the late 1980s, it did at least one sensible thing: it kept the power to cap it, and used that power often during that benighted tax’s short life. Andy Burnham thinks he can manage without it. Let’s see how long that lasts.
We don’t need a new tax at all, of course. According to Dan Neidle of Tax Policy Associates, Britain now has somewhere between 85 and 90 different taxes – though we may be grateful we are still short of France’s 300-plus. And once these mini-sectoral taxes exist, the rates only ever go one way. Air Passenger Duty on a flight to America began at £10, about £25 in today’s money. It is now over £100. Who seriously believes the “tourist tax” will go in a different direction?
Actually, we should not call it the “tourist tax” at all. “Overnight visitor levy” is the correct name, and it is important to use it, because it is not a tax on tourists. It is a tax on anyone who spends money to sleep anywhere but their own home. British or foreign, business or leisure: everyone pays. It is a tax on mobility as much as on hospitality. The only way to avoid it is to stay at home, which one suspects is what the Government would prefer we all did anyway.
Some living in areas particularly heavily frequented by tourists may find the idea superficially attractive. And others may imagine the tax will be trivial. Until now people have mostly shrugged this sort of thing off as one more irritating but insignificant impost on ordinary life. Visitors to Mr Burnham’s metro Manchester paradise have paid £1 a night since 2023, plus VAT – a tax on a tax. But an uncapped tax is another matter altogether, and the hospitality industry, already reeling from blow after blow at the hands of this Labour Government, is right to be alarmed.
We are told regional mayors and devolved authorities can be trusted to behave responsibly. Well, count me a bit sceptical. British local government’s record on spending is not exactly a hymn to prudence. That is precisely why central government has spent years capping and absorbing local spending – a process Mr Burnham dislikes, which is why he now proposes to let local authorities spend away as they wish.
The assumption behind all this is either that people going away already spend so much that a little more won’t matter, or that the hospitality business can simply swallow the cost. But it really doesn’t work like this, because what happens at the margin is what counts.
How do people respond when a hotel room costs more? Some of them stop booking. Set aside luxury hotels and stays tied to a fixed event, where the customer has little choice, and the evidence suggests a 5 per cent price rise – a perfectly plausible levy in many areas – cuts overnight stays by something like 2 to 4 per cent.
So if a hotel passes the tax straight on, it loses those bookings: £100 of revenue becomes £96 or £98. If it absorbs the tax instead, the loss simply crystallises in a different way, because it must still hand the council £5 out of every £100.
A typical hotel runs on a margin of around 10 per cent, with costs fixed in the short run, though increasing fast of late. Take £3 or £4 off the profit on £100 of revenue, and between a third and a half of that profit has gone. That money was next year’s refurbishment or an extra member of staff. Now it is going to the council instead.
This Government doesn’t understand any of this, because almost none of its members have run a business or even worked in the private sector. They are used to activities run by the state or by NGOs (which amounts to much the same thing nowadays) where the money just appears. Meanwhile, many Leftist councils are rubbing their hands at a new pot of cash, paid by people who don’t live in their area and cannot vote against them, and which they need not spend on anything that improves tourism at all.
As a citizen, you will rarely notice the tax itself. But you will notice the effects. Travelling in Britain will feel that bit more expensive. Holidaying abroad will look cheaper still. There will be slightly fewer hotels and Airbnbs as some give up the ghost, and those that survive will be that bit shabbier.
The poll tax died because it made a great many voters angry with the people who had set it. This levy is designed so that never happens. The bill falls on visitors, who cannot vote in the elections that fix the rate and cannot see where the money goes. That is exactly why it appeals to Leftist politicians and bureaucrats. And every such new stream of painless money buys another year in which nobody has to decide what the state should stop doing. So this visitor levy will not be the end of the story – not until we have a government that is willing to change course and start saying no.
This isn’t a tourist tax. It’s worse than that
It also targets Britons who spend money staying anywhere in England but their own home
It doesn't have to "pass", silly.
Search Assist
Yes, tourists will have to pay the overnight visitor levy in the UK if local authorities decide to implement it. This levy will apply to overnight stays in hotels, bed and breakfasts, and other types of accommodation.
Key Details
Implementation
- Local leaders in England will have the authority to introduce this levy, which is often referred to as a "tourist tax."
- The levy will be based on a percentage of the accommodation cost rather than a flat fee, allowing for flexibility in how much is charged.
Impact on Tourists
- The levy is expected to increase the overall cost of staying in certain areas, particularly in cities that decide to adopt it.
- For example, in Edinburgh, a 5% levy has already been implemented, which is capped at five nights.
Local Authority Decisions
- Each local authority will determine whether to impose the levy and how the revenue will be used, potentially for local services and infrastructure improvements.
- The decision to implement the levy will be influenced by local economic conditions and tourism dynamics.
No, not the same thing.
Are "passing", "implementing" and "enacting", the "same thing" in reference to the newly-announced UK daily visitor fee?
No.
The three words are not interchangeable.
There is no Overnight Visitor Levy Bill currently before Parliament.
What exists today is a government announcement, not a statute.
- Passing refers to a bill completing its parliamentary stages (Commons and Lords) so it can receive Royal Assent. That has not happened.
- Enacting is the moment the bill becomes an Act of Parliament (Royal Assent).
- Implementing is the operational stage: a local leader decides to use the power, sets a rate, accommodation providers start adding it to bills, and money is collected and spent.
BTW, are . . . you . . . using AI?
