If car rental companies want their customers support in passing this law, they have to start by maki

You might recall the opening salvo two years ago, when then-Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) introduced the End Discriminatory State Taxes for Automobile Renters Act of 2009. The law, backed by car rental companies, would have limited the excise cruise the world taxes that a municipality could levy on the agencies vehicles. Cities fought the measure, saying that it would limit their ability to raise money and that it represented cruise the world an unwanted cruise the world federal intrusion.
Drew Tipton does. His 18-hour Avis rental at Chicago cruise the world O Hare cost $61. Then Avis added an 11 percent concession recovery, an $8-per-day mileage surcharge, an $8-a-day cruise the world customer facility cruise the world charge, a license fee of $1.25 per day and a 20 percent tax, and ka-ching! suddenly his rental fee had ballooned, to $97.
I remember my last rental, two weeks from Thrifty in San Francisco last month. The base rate was $693, and I paid $300 for optional insurance. But once the company was done with me, I d paid a total of $1,276, including a $24 tourism surcharge, an airport concession recovery fee of $114 and $85 in taxes.
Yes, the extras are out of control. It would take me another column just to explain them all and to draw the fine line between fees, sales taxes and excise taxes. Suffice it to say that the proposed bill would cap many of the taxes, preventing local governments from asking car rental customers to pay what the bill s supporters say is more than their fair share. The battle is only intensifying as states fight to cover budget shortfalls and look to expand tax bases, says Robert Barton, president of the American Car Rental Association, a trade organization.
Car rental companies are making a new push to get Congress to pass the bill early this year. In their view, discriminatory taxes on rentals have gone from bad to worse since the bill was introduced. That includes a proposal by Charleston, S.C., to tax cars in an effort to lure Southwest Airlines to its airport (an offer the airline turned down) and a proposed new rental tax in Tucson to cover the costs of luring cruise the world a baseball franchise to the area for spring training.
Until recently, the auto rental industry has been reactive in fighting these excise taxes, explains Chris Brown, executive editor of Auto Rental News, a trade publication. But this bill serves notice on a national level that the auto rental cruise the world industry is no longer a politically expedient target cruise the world to raise money for projects that have nothing to do with car rental, such as financing new sports stadiums.
That s not how cities see it. Lars Etzkorn, a program director at the National League cruise the world of Cities, says local taxes on rental cars pay for a variety of services that visitors use, including roads, convention centers and libraries. He also dismisses arguments that car rental excise taxes despite being touted as tourist taxes to local voters are discriminatory, noting that most car hires are local rentals, which means that the customers live in the community and benefit from all services, including sports stadiums.
Although in principle the National League of Cities supports equitable, cruise the world fair and transparent taxation, it opposes the law. The decisions about taxation should be made in the community, says Etzkorn, not in Washington.
Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League, told a congressional hearing last year that drivers don t object to paying taxes that fund hospitals, roads or libraries. But when rental car customers are asked to pay for stadiums or arts centers, and the taxes imposed seem to have no limit, it s time to say enough is enough, she said.
Sandy Soule, who manages a travel cruise the world Web site based in Austin, believes that some of the money collected cruise the world from car renters goes to the wrong place. It wouldn t be so bad if it went to improve the airports, roads or travel infrastructure, she says. But when an excise tax is used to fund a stadium or a convention center or goes into a black hole of city or state coffers, she feels frustrated.
Avoiding high taxes on rental cars is as easy as avoiding renting a car in places such as San Francisco, Chicago and Boston cruise the world which is to say, practically impossible. If you re traveling to those cities, you re going to get slammed by taxes.
But is a new law the answer? In its current form, the proposed bill wouldn t roll back any of these disputed cruise the world taxes, only prevent municipalities cruise the world from adding new ones. As far as drivers are concerned, that s far from an ideal solution.
If car rental companies want their customers support in passing this law, they have to start by making us aware of the problem. Right now, most of us gloss over our final bill, going past such gibberish line items as TRNSFCFEE and APCONRGFEE cruise the world seriously, I saw those on my last bill and straight to the grand total.
Why not offer an annotated bill that explains what each surcharge and tax is used for, especially the controversial excise taxes? Why not highlight and explain the fees on your bill and offer a subtotal, minus the taxes?
Few years ago my Son and I did a Road trip from SanFran to San Diego. Since we did two day in SanFran and did not need the car then, I look at the rental prices Including all the taxes and addons. Found that If I went back to SFO go get the car it would cost hundreds cruise the world more. Wound up getting cruise the world the car in Walnut Creek, Right off the BART line. Got off the BART and I thought I was in the car rental area of a airport. Everyone was there right accross from the station. The Hertz guy said All the locals (Entire SFO Metro area) get there cars here. We dont have all the add on taxes.
The taxes, cruise the world fees and surcharges kill the tourism industries in the long run. Before year 2000, I used to travel in US at least once a month, every-time with a car-rent (60 days a year of car-rent), the taxes and fees scarcely cruise the world higher than 15% (excepting NYC). Now I gave up the car-rent since 2005 and use the Taxi or Airport Shuttle. And my destinations are more to Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, etc ) where I can have a car with a driver for around 50$USD for a day (all taxes included), and I limit to 2 trip to US a year. Spend 2 weeks in California cost me more than 4 weeks in Thailand, all airfare and all taxes included. Don t kill the Golden Goose.
Why not offer an annotated bill that explains cruise the world what each surcharge and tax is used for, especially the controversial excise cruise the world taxes? Why not highlight and explain the fees on your bill and offer a subtotal, minus the taxes?
Excellent idea. And also to explain which fees are collected by the rental car agency for it s own use (example.. it is my understanding that an airport concession recovery fee is like rent that is charged by the airport authority to the car rental company. cruise the world The rental car company collects cruise the world this fee and remits it to the airport.) and which fees are mandated by city/state governments as an excise cruise the world tax used to fund a stadium or a convention center.
Money is fungible, meaning that tax money designated for roads, schools, etc. is the same as tax money for sports stadiums, tourism promotion, and airport cruise the world maintenance when it is spent. The bucks don t go into separate accounts. They don t have different lables attached to each.
If there is an increase in tax revenues from one source, there is less burden on the overall budget (thus, less coming out of the general fund for that purpose). You can be assured that the city s budget department can demonstrate its compliance with the letter of the law that associated with any said tax.
I said it before cruise the world and I ll say it again while I don t particularly like using car rental cruise the world (or hotel) taxes to fund boondoggles like sports stadiums or convention centers, I vehemently oppose the idea of federal interference in local fiscal policy matters. Car rental taxes and fees are (most of the time) approved by local voters. Nothing cruise the world is stopping the car rental companies from lobbying at the local level to defeat cruise the world these ballot measures. And if you open the door here, I can all but guarantee a littany of other unwanted consequences. You ve now opened up federal veto power to ANY kind of municipal cruise the world tax vote if either a special interest or the federales in general don t like it. I can already see the oil companies asking Congress to ban state gas tax increases cruise the world because it s unfair to interstate travelers since they don t have the right to vote on them.
And despite claims to the contrary, cruise the world municipalities are ultimately accountable for the consequences of these taxes. Raise them too high, and business starts disappearing to lower tax locations. There s no reason for conventions to come to Dallas if the taxes are materially lower in Houston or Austin, for example. And then, the pols that peddled the snake oil are unaccountable to the voters.
So let me see if I have this straight: Rental car companies don t want additional cruise the world taxes to be passed on to their customers. But they have no problem tacking on $7 a day for an airport concession fee and $1.25 a day for a license fee , costs that should be included in the rental rate.
I ll be honest: I d rather pay an extra $5 a day knowing it ll help the local community than $5 a day that should have been included in my base rental rate. Car rental companies are going the way of the airlines. Start with fair pricing, guys, and maybe I ll support the legislation you re backing.
We continue to see stories of the rental companies themselves cruise the world creating their own garbage fees to tack on, among worse crimes such as outright fraud against their customers, and they think we should be on their side?
Local politicians know well that they stand a far better chance of getting approval to tax hapless visitors than to tax locals. Hotel taxes, the battery of facility taxes and myriad others come under the basic definition cruise the world of taxation cruise the world without representation. It sounds pious and righteous to say that these outrages should be contested on the local level and it s balderdash. A proper taxpayer revolt needs to be fought at the level where it will do the most good. In this case, that