James Mak
Making Sense of Mandatory Resort Fees
More than 1,000 hotels in the U.S. require guests to pay a mandatory resort fee, stated as a fixed dollar amount per room per night of occupancy, in addition to the base room rate. According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), approximately 7% of U.S. hotels charge resort fees. Resort fees cover such […]
Read MoreTime to End the Preferential Taxation of Timeshare Occupancy?
Timeshares comprise a significant percentage of visitor accommodations in Hawaii. There are currently over 11,000 timeshare units in the state, and unlike traditional hotel accommodations, their number keeps growing. Timeshare visitors represented almost 10% of all visitor arrivals in Hawaii during the third quarter of 2017. In Hawaii timeshare owners are required to pay an […]
Read MoreSustainable Tourism Development and Overtourism
Everyone agrees that tourism should be developed in a sustainable way. Yet, nearly 25 years after the term “sustainable tourism” became fashionable, sustainable tourism development remains elusive. Residents in many popular destinations around the world complain about being overwhelmed by too many tourists, or “overtourism”. The United Nations World Tourism Organization blames the problem on […]
Read MoreIs Hawaii’s Hotel Room Tax Law Obsolete?
With tax collections falling behind expectations, State lawmakers are pressuring the tax department to increase effort to collect uncollected taxes from internet sales.* In 2015 the State Attorney General’s Office scored a “major” victory when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that online travel companies (OTCs) are required to pay Hawaii’s general excise tax (GET) on […]
Read MoreRaising Property Taxes to Improve Public Schools
By James Mak and Carl Bonham Hawaii’s public school teachers’ union (HSTA) is back at the State Legislature this session to ask lawmakers to help find more money to pay teachers and other education expenses. HSTA was at the Legislature last year to lobby for a 1% increase in the State’s 4% general excise and use […]
Read MoreThe Exorbitant Cost of Collecting Honolulu’s Rail Surcharge Tax
Act 247, SLH 2005, granted counties the authority to impose a county surcharge of no more than 0.5% on gross income that is subject to the State’s GET [General Excise Tax] at the rate of 4.0% to fund county public transportation systems… The City and County of Honolulu was the only county to adopt the […]
Read MoreHow Many Tourists is Too Many?
By James Mak Honolulu Star Advertiser columnist, Lee Cataluna, recently asked: “How many tourists is too many tourists?” 1 Apparently, she already knew the answer. To her, the 8.5 million plus tourists coming to Hawaii each year is way too many. She laments that nobody seems to be talking about limiting the number “…like maybe […]
Read MoreRegulating Home-Share Rentals in Hawaii
By James Mak Last year nearly one in three U.S. travelers stayed in home-based accommodation units compared to one in ten in 2011. 1 A search by the New Orleans Planning Commission found more than 40 websites that facilitate short-term rentals ranging from single rooms in private homes to entire villas. 2 The most conspicuous […]
Read MoreHow Hawaii’s State Government Shares Transient Accommodation Tax Revenues With Its Local Governments
Many states in the U.S. give unrestricted financial support to their local governments. The reasons some state governments provide aid and others do not, and why a particular mode of revenue sharing is adopted remain unclear. This paper examines Hawaii’s recent effort at developing a model to allocate the state’s transient accommodation tax revenues between […]
Read More