Hotel tax to pay for 2022 Games ‘crazy’, sayTories
Council still faces shortfall to fund Commonwealth event
AHOTEL bedroom tax to pay for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games has been described as ‘crazy’.
The council has confirmed it will have to borrow £50 million to fund its part of the event with a further £75 million coming from partners such as the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).
However, a shortfall has prompted the possibility of new taxes, with a hotel bed tax and airport tax among the options.
But council officers appeared to pour cold water on the idea this week, telling councillors there was simply not enough time to introduce the relevant legislation.
But officers said there was a chance the taxes could be introduced as part of a wider scheme in the future.
However, the idea was dismissed by both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.
“You’ve mentioned again the airport passenger tax,” said Cllr Paul
Tilsley (Lib Dem). “Well I sit on the board of the airport, and there’s been no discussion about it at all. And I can tell you our partners, Ontario pensions, would be entirely against jacking up an additional tax on passengers in or out.
“Because it would detrimentally effect Birmingham as a destination.”
Cllr Meirion Jenkins (Con) was critical of any plans for a hotel bedroom tax.
“I think a hotel tax is a crazy idea,” he said. “Don’t you understand that we already pay 20 per cent VAT on a hotel bill. So it’s not like other parts of the world where you’re at a different starting point.
“So we pay 20 per cent already, on which you would wish to impose another tax, which would see it climb to between 20 and 25 per cent.
“And I think that would be highly undesirable, considering that we now pay more tax than we have at any time in the past 50 years.
“So I think you should entirely forget about the idea of putting a tax on hotels, and I think you should entirely forget about the idea of making
Birmingham airport uncompetitive.”
Speaking during a Resources Overview and Scrutiny meeting, Guy Olivant, major developments lead for the Games, confirmed there was very little chance of a new tax being introduced in time.
“We have done some work looking at alternative sources of funding,” he said.
“So we’ve been looking at things like the hotel bedroom tax, looking at workplace parking levies, looking at options around some sort of an airport levy.
“For those areas we reached the conclusion that, particularly where there was need for some primary legislation as would be the case for the hotel’s tax, that we would have a real problem getting the parliamentary time to get them implemented in time to make a material impact for funding the Games.
“It may be as part of a wider culture piece nationally that a hotel bedroom levy may be implemented not just in Birmingham but more widely at some point in the future. And as for workplace parking, I know that is being looked at as part of the council’s wider approach to looking at congestion and clean air.
“But again, the likely timelines flow beyond 2022.”