Is £2 tax right?

Edinburgh councillors backed plans to introduce £2-a-night tourist tax after the Scottish Government gave the go-ahead.

Ach, tax fresh air and be done with it!

chocablock

They’ve been wanting to do this for years, £2 seems fair.

Daviejams

No issue with the principle, however, it seems unfair to charge £2 per night irrespective if the room costs £200 a night or £10 a night. Surely it would have been better to set the tax as a percentage of the room cost eg 2% or 3%. Also, set a threshold below which the tax was not applicable to help backpackers in hostels etc.

City Loon

I’ve no idea how this tax will be collected. Do they expect people to pay it voluntarily? They’ll have to have some way of checking how many nights the rooms were occupied for… welcome to the Soviet Union circa 1976.

Bobby Spray They’ll use it to ask Airbnb etc for data on rooms being rented out. Also, to get those people onto a register so they can have a slice of other people’s hard work and graft – through more taxes, registration certificates, anything they can come up with, basically.

honeysuckle3 I visit Edinburgh twice a year to see my relatives and we (wife & children) stay in a good hotel because it’s more convenient. Will the council distinguish between “visitors” and “tourists”?

micjonger