Tag: taxes

Frequent Flyers Should Pay More Taxes To Decrease Planes’ Carbon Footprint???

Airlines are doing everything they can to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. They have commercial planes fly at the “sweet spot” of energy efficiency. They’ve come up with all sorts of crazy ways to decrease weight so they don’t use up as much fuel. In fact, Frontier even put a spin on it to say that checked baggage fees are good for the environment.

In October 2016, governments from over 190 countries pledged to take major steps to improve fuel economy.  Each country (except those that have pulled out or refused to participate. For example, Brazil, India, China and Russia) is looking at ways it can help make its carbon footprint smaller. Here are a few examples, some of which are a little more far-reaching than others.

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Hundreds of Thousands of U.S. Citizens At Risk Of Having Their Passports Revoked

The U.S. Department of State wants you to know that it is not playing around.

We reported last year that the State Department had a new rule, as of 2015, regarding tax debt but that it wasn’t implemented or enforced until early 2018. That rule spelled out that if an individual has “seriously delinquent tax debt” (at the time, $50,000 or more), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would contact the State Department, which would, in turn, “generally deny an application for issuance or renewal of a passport from such individual, and may revoke or limit a passport previously issued to such individual.”

The State Department has never reported how many passports have been revoked or denied, but they’re apparently ready for Round 2.

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Want To Leave A Country? There’s A Tax For That

There are many things you’ll consider when choosing which foreign country to visit but I bet one thing you usually wouldn’t think about is how much you’ll need to pay to leave the country and return home. Yep, governments have realized that an easy way to collect money from tourists (and their own residents, as well), is to charge a fee when leaving the country. Sure in some countries it’s called a tax, in other’s it a duty and you’ll even see it referred to as a fee, but make no mistake, they’re all ways to have you pay money so you can leave the country.

The amount of these, let’s call them fees, varies greatly from country to country. Japan recently added a departure fee of ¥1000, (about $9 USD), for people leaving the country. Australia charges a fee of A$60 ($42 USD) and Fiji charges a F$200 ($93.68 USD) fee to all departing passengers.

One reason you need to know the departure fee is that airlines will often charge you this fee when redeeming miles for an award ticket. Since it’s not considered part of the airfare cost from the airline, they pass the charge onto you.

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Understanding Hotel Taxes, Resort Fees & Deposits For Incidentals

When you find a hotel rate, especially in the United States, you will rarely, if ever pay just that amount. Just like when you purchase an item in the U.S., unless it says that tax is included, chances are good that you’ll have to pay tax on top of the advertised price; that’s just how we charge for things in the U.S. The same goes for hotels. Unless an advertised price explicitly says that taxes & fees are included, you can bet that something(s) is/are going to be added on to make your final price. And in recent years, some hotels have added on something sneaky called a “resort fee,” too. Plus you often have to put down a deposit for incidentals. But let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start):

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