Room fee, parking fee, suite fee, suite license fee, state tax, license fee, state license tax. Each of these were on one of my three hotel bills over the prior 8 days. The room charge was 76% of the daily charges I had on that room.
I am not surprised to pay a state tax on a hotel room. Don’t get me wrong as I have done considerable traveling in my career.
I may not like it but I am a firm believer that government has to have revenue to do its job (I understand that is controversial but it was drilled into me as a kid because my father’s job was helping governments around the world attempt to collect taxes equitably and effectively. Not always successful in some of that pursuit, he would have been the first to admit). Civic illiteracy contributes to an apparently widespread misunderstanding of what taxes do or where they go or support. That civic illiteracy thing again.
I was not thrilled by the parking fee as the hotel was in a part of town where there was ample parking but the lot did have a secure gate so I understood that fee was truly a user fee and I definitely used it.
A suite fee? A license fee? A suite license fee? Well, obviously I am leading a sheltered life as those were new ones. Howsabout a bathroom fee? Perhaps sheets?
I certainly would have protested a rubbish fee since the bin, in the era of no daily or multiple day-room refreshes, was utterly overflowing. But my hotelier has not assessed that fee yet.
I am not being naive nor disingenuous here. Fees are the way that commercial businesses extract payment from users while officials at the county, city, state or federal level use these usage-based assessments to avoid asking their voters to pay higher taxes. En lieu of irritating the voter, visitors—be they business types or touristas (or some of us have both roles on a hotel stay)—become unwitting financial contributors for commercial and community operations. But some of these are taxes, my friends, but usage taxes.
Usage conveys an affirmative decision to do something leading to a fee: it’s truly an action creating consequences in the most obvious sense. It also feels like nickle-and-diming frequently but it gives the fee payer the chance to decline an activity rather than incur the fee. That is why they offer us the fine print which so few of us read.
I remember listening to the Chicago City Council (a spectator sport, regardless of the topic, worthy of a good dark beer, feet on the table, and a huge open space on your calendar for ‘entertainment’) almost forty years ago impose a gas tax at O’Hare, which is miraculously linked to the city by a thin gerrymandered corridor. Several members were quite up front that someone transiting the airport would know nothing of the tax assessed because of the act of landing the plane unless she truly went through the fees printed on the ticket (pre-digital tickets) which was deemed highly unlikely. Besides, what could she do about it? The fee was to use the fuel at O’Hare. They had a point, as do the other elected bodies across the country doing the same.
Taxes, on the other hand, are an assessment based on income or purchasing behaviour (sales tax) or property ownership. That is where it gets stickly. Tax-paying, for obvious reasons, is not voluntary but is a mandated civic responsibility based on the assessed amount you owe. At least that is how we say we do it. Tax scoff laws generally are hated folks but not always.
Here’s where the hard part kicks in—contrary to popular belief, we all have a say in how those taxes are spent but most of us have neither the time nor the interest nor the patience to read each and every bill debated and passed into law by officials which lead to taxes and the attendant spending of those taxes. It’s easier to assume the worst: my taxes are going to someone’s hair brain scheme.
But, here is the reality: yes, except every single bill in Congress or in a state or county legislature is debated (this is why we have open hearings and accountability to the voters rather than backroom deals, at least in theory). And we as voters have the chance to vote people in and out of office whose priorities for spending and taxation conform or vary from out own. That is what representative government is all about. That is a major reason we hold regular elections in this country. Yet we tend to ignore the level of detail that requires of us as voters who actually are quite powerful folks.
Fees and taxes are not the same but there are certainly blended aspects of public fees which look a lot like taxes. Then again, maybe it’s how we are discussing them. Or not discussing them. But fees are most definitely proliferating while all levels of government show reluctance to raise taxes.
I am able to pay these taxes (or fees, excuse me) or I would not make the trip in the beginning. That does not mean I am ecstatic about it but, as noted, I believe governments require revenue to do what the taxpayers/voters do expect of them and businesses can ask me to pay to use something, even if it strikes me as ludicrous to pay for a community good.
I know there are others who find paying these taxes hard. When one reserves a room, the base rate rarely has much connection—sorry, 25% increase is steep—to the ‘come on’ rate the hotel advertises. In an era of people spending unbelievable amounts at a Disney or Four Flags or some other place drawing children, these targeted fees must bite. But the people taking their kids made the choice; they did not have to go to Florida or California but could have taken their kids to a picnic spot on the Michigan dunes.
But, it’s become the American way to oppose taxes. Come to think about it, it’s always been our way. We are consistent on one thing.
But, we are still paying those taxes in other forms, too, and we always will even if we call them fees. We are amidst conversations about decreasing federal discretionary spending but, as I understand the new reports, the intent by some of the negotiators is to decrease these discretionary programs to free the money for defense spending which is already higher than anywhere in the world. I am not sure the effect will lower taxes for the average American, especially those least able to pay.
Should we each pay a fee to have a strong defense? Oh, that might mean Quakers and others would not pay their assessment. That acould lead to….
Have a safe weekend. We are so lucky to live in this country, taxed, ‘fee’d, or anything else. See you tomorrow.FIN