Love-Hate Relationship with Tourism (Talking Tax)

Need It, Want It, Hate it.  The hosts for this show are Jay Fidell and Tom Yamachika.   Here in Hawaii, we officially have a love-hate relationship with tourism. How do we love it?  Look no further than the Hawaii Tourism Authority, which has been awarding lucrative marketing contracts – tens of millions of dollars per year. How do we hate it?  We have been taxing the bejeebers out of tourists.  Tourists looking at their hotel folios are greeted with a state TAT of 10.25%, a county TAT of 3%, a state general excise tax of 4%, and, for most counties, a county surcharge on state tax of 0.5%.  That’s a whopping combined tax rate of close to 18% under current law. With all of these mixed messages going out to what is, happily or unhappily, our No. 1 economic driver, the possibility of economic waste looms large. The ThinkTech YouTube Playlist for this show is https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQpkwcNJny6lmEllOKP493URXssFT4N7G Please visit our ThinkTech website at https://thinktechhawaii.com and see our Think Tech Advisories at https://thinktechadvisories.blogspot.com.