Couple of things
- The Athens Banner-Herald put together a nice piece on the Senate District 47 race between Mac Rawson and Ralph Hudgens ... the latter looking more and more like a complete moron with each passing second. For the life of me, I really can't get how we're able to have an election that is based almost purely on the fact that Hudgens has so much contempt in his heart for the very city of Athens, that he felt the need to dilute its voting strength. Still, it's an uphill climb for Rawson no matter what.
- Speaking of politics, the Banner-Herald gives Andy Rusk some props.
- Hey, you know what? I used to work with this guy, and he was a lazy, terrible writer back then and now he's a full-fledged idiot.
- So does this mean they're not going to endorse in the governor's race? That seems odd to me if that's the case.
- This is a follow-up to a silly debate we had a few days back, but it appears that Michael J. Fox was on his medication for the ad.
- Again, this sounds good, but it depends on individual races at the local level rather than polls of the entire country.
- OK John Marsh ... does this you don't support the sales tax either? What if you own land in this community, but live elsewhere? I mean, it seems to me you could have a couple of rational reasons to oppose the hotel-motel tax but crying 'taxation without representation' is absurd.
- Speaking of politics, the Banner-Herald gives Andy Rusk some props.
- Hey, you know what? I used to work with this guy, and he was a lazy, terrible writer back then and now he's a full-fledged idiot.
- So does this mean they're not going to endorse in the governor's race? That seems odd to me if that's the case.
- This is a follow-up to a silly debate we had a few days back, but it appears that Michael J. Fox was on his medication for the ad.
- Again, this sounds good, but it depends on individual races at the local level rather than polls of the entire country.
- OK John Marsh ... does this you don't support the sales tax either? What if you own land in this community, but live elsewhere? I mean, it seems to me you could have a couple of rational reasons to oppose the hotel-motel tax but crying 'taxation without representation' is absurd.
posted by Jmac at 7:09 AM
6 Comments:
I just wanted to say that I love the relatively new, vicious Jmac who calls people out for being bad writers and idiots.
You, sir, rock.
Just letters-to-the-editor ... though I really didn't care for that guy back when we worked together, so there's that.
rock on, jmac
-jms
somehow i'd think kevin would be much more mellow about those kind of things, but that's just me
Someone just pointed me to this blog.
Let me begin with several principles:
1) There is no such thing as a perfect tax.
2) If we want something should pay for it.
3) If we want to vote to spend something then we should vote to tax ourselves.
I am a big supporter of the sales tax and I also recognize that we need some sort of a tax such as the property tax that is reasonably tied to the the local population. While it is true that outsiders may pay some portion of the sales tax the majority of it will be born by locals simply due to proximity. With the property tax the local property owners are bearing the cost of the tax on their property and if out of town property owners are renting their property then the property tax is being paid by the renters through their rent and so the cost of the tax comes to fall on the local populace. In both of these cases the taxes are designed to be born primarily by locals and so they have an incentive to minimize these taxes.
The hotel-motel tax is different. It is designed to fall primarily on outsiders and only incidentally on locals. Before moving to Athens in the early 90's I often visited here and stayed in Athens hotels. Since moving here I have not once stayed in an Athens hotel in going on fourteen years. Local people, for the most part, are not staying in our local hotels and paying this tax. My objection to this tax goes back to principles 2 and 3.
My complaint with the ABH is that they have repeatedly called for other people and the customers of other businesses to be taxed without stepping up and saying tax us and tax our customers.
A little background on the Hotel-Motel excise tax- The current 7% is the highest in the state of Georgia bringing the combined tax total on a hotel room to 14%. This is higher combined rate than almost anywhere in the country including convention cities such as New York, Las Vegas, and Atlanta.
I believe that the tourism and hospitality industry are vital to the Athens economy and will be an important growth area for jobs and revenue in the next few years. Last year's proposal to raise the tax to 8% would have had a negative effect on the industry in Athens. Having the highest tax rate in the state makes it harder to attract conventions in a competitive market. The tax is indirectly passed down to the hotels, who lower their rates to compensate for the tax. Local businesses often pay for hotel rooms for clients, employees, contractors, etc, and are indirectly paying the cost of this tax as well.
Not particularly relevent to the topic, but I thought I'd add my thoughts on the Hotel tax issue.
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