You want to tax me and the hard earned dollars I could be spending at Kaohsiung businesses? Fine! I will spend my dollars in Tainan!
Your name may be Korean Excellence(韓國瑜), but I smell mediocrity.
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“How To F**k Your Tourism In 3 Easy Steps”
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I live here, so I’m not a tourist, right? Waiting to see if this is really a tax on tourists, or on foreigners.
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It’s still xenophobic AF and will not solve anything if you punish them for spending money in your city.
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The guy’s a kunt of the first order.
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How is it going to be enforced? Passport checks in hotels, I assume. What if my Taiwanese wife books in? Are the hotel staff going to raise my whiteyness as a valid reason for taxing us 100NT?
It’s not that great a city, anyway.
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The article mentions that Kaohsiung would simply be following a precedent set by other countries, including the US. I had my doubts about the US having “tourist taxes”, other than having additional taxes charged on hotels, car rentals, etc. that everyone pays.
So I did a little research, and found out there is a kind of-sort of tourist tax. Since 2010 the US assesses a fee, currently $14, to file an ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation) for tourists visiting the US from visa-waiver counties.
https://amp.theguardian.com/travel/2010/mar/05/us-charge-tourists-to-enter
Although I still don’t agree–who wants to pay more?–I found this older article that supports tourism tax/dual pricing: https://qz.com/1021270/expecting-tourists-to-pay-more-than-locals-can-be-controversial-but-its-the-right-thing-to-do/amp/
What say ye?
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Once every month or two I have to work down there. I guess I’ll be classed as a tourist for that. I’ll get it back on expenses, but even so…
That’s a visa fee. It’s not really the same. Still, is a hotel tax that unusual?
Yeah, it’s really a processing fee, but I suppose some would argue it’s not fair because only tourists have to pay it?
I can see an increase in Kaohsiung’s hotel tax appearing less discriminatory and easier to enforce. They do have hotel tax, right?
Problem is: define foreigners.
Is he going to tax the Chinese tourists from China? Yeah, that is going to be so 92 Consensus of him.
If yes, is he going to tax Taipei ren?
How about Overseas Compatriots?
I guess he is going to target SEA folk. That will put him in the government graces all right.
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And he has not even started…
It’s called VAT in lots of countries and it’s pretty common but it’s just added as a percentage of the hotel bill and there is no discrimination. I can’t recall the service tax for hotels in Taiwan, it may simply be 5% sales tax ?
Some countries charge an airport entry/exit fee for foreign visitors (apart from airline surcharges )…Usually the dodgy ones.
This Han Guo Yu guy is WAY out of his depth, he will be found out within a year or two…
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Yeah apply it across the board and let hotels give a resident discount if they want. Seems complicated otherwise. If you book online, are they going to run a residency check on you?
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Maybe they would use that ARC number
It’s quite common in Europe, I was charged it in Prague this year, but I know other places have it too.
Big-nose checks.
They have this in Taipei already for some services, such as the maokong gondola.
Non Taipei residents pay more for the gondola, so if they can make it work in Taipei I can’t see why they cannot figure it out in Kaohsiung
That’s non-residents. With an ARC you walk right to the front of the queue and pay the local ticket price.
The reason this is a dickhead move is because you’d want to be attracting tourists to Kaohsiung. If no one else has the tax tourists will just go elsewhere. It’s not like Kaohsiung is the eighth wonder of the world. The point about tourists is they spend money in your city, that’s a good thing.
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I think the bear may be onto something…
Guy