What s the big idea? Consumer Traveler is the policy site of Travelers United . This is a blog about

A recent study of rental car prices and taxation concluded that taxes on travelers manage to hit local residents harder than expected. Though, once upon a time, rental cars were focused on airports and served predominately visitors, now almost 50 percent of car rentals serve locals atlanta rental car agency and end up taxing the lower income residents who do not own cars. That s not what legislators had in mind when they slapped taxes on visitors.
This following content comes from internal working papers that were shared with me by the National atlanta rental car agency Consumers League. They outline a real problem. But, what can be done about it? There s the rub. Most of the taxes are local and having the federal government limit state taxation doesn t sit well. Plus, having the states limit local city taxation is also a political atlanta rental car agency no-no.
All that being said, taxes on car rental consumers have proliferated over the past 20 years. State legislatures and local governments have enacted these taxes often due to a mistaken belief that the majority of car rental customers are businesses or well-to-do visitors from out-of-town.
atlanta rental car agency Governments in 43 states and the District of Columbia have imposed 118 different excise taxes on car rentals in various jurisdictions — representing more than an eight-fold increase in the number of such taxes since 1990. Additional excise atlanta rental car agency tax proposals are currently pending across the country.
These state and local taxes are separate from, and in addition to, the airport fees that are imposed on rental car companies for various services provided by the airport authority. Airport fees must be spent for airports atlanta rental car agency and supporting efforts. State and local taxes, however, can be used as governments see fit; hence, atlanta rental car agency their popularity.
According to the most recent data, since 2006, more than half of all car rentals take place in the local market — and this trend continues as Americans are choosing with increasing frequency to rent to otherwise supplement their transportation needs. Moreover, many renters cannot afford to own a car and rent only when they need to take a relative to a doctor’s appointment, visit family or head out of town on weekends. And car sharing, ridesharing, vanpooling, and other forms of virtual car ownership are becoming increasingly popular in urban areas and on college campuses.
As a result, local renters wind up being asked to shoulder the tax burden for boondoggle projects from which they often derive no benefit. For example, sports stadiums are often funded with these taxes. And yet, those who rent cars many times can’t afford to attend games at the very venues their taxes subsidize.
The Brattle Group of Cambridge, Massachusetts, examined local rentals (excluding airport rentals) that were paid directly by the renter (rentals in a consumer’s home town that were not reimbursed by an insurance company or employer). They found that taxes fall disproportionately upon racial minorities and substantially upon low-income renters. According to the study:
atlanta rental car agency • In absolute terms, in 2008, African Americans paid over 13 million dollars in these car rental tax payments, while members of other minority groups paid another seven and a half million dollars during that same period.
Charles Leocha atlanta rental car agency is a nationally recognized expert on affordable travel and the publisher atlanta rental car agency of Consumer Traveler. He is the author of Travel Rights and a series of guidebooks covering the USA and Europe. In 2009 he founded the Consumer Travel Alliance together atlanta rental car agency with Christopher Elliott. It was renamed Travelers United in 2014. During his time with Travelers United, he has testified regularly before Congress and serves on consumer advisory atlanta rental car agency committees with DOT and TSA.
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