ThinkTech Hawaii

Love-Hate Relationship with Tourism (Talking Tax)

Mar 9, 2023 · 32 min · 31.0 MB
0:00-32:15

Streams straight from the publisher. podnod never proxies or re-hosts episode audio.

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.