Page 14 - CMB

LOCAL Wednesday 18 July 2018
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Continued from Page 14 opposed to taxes per se,
Caribbean Member States as part of the overall fis-
of ICAO are the sovereign cal responsibility of States,
countries: Antigua and Bar- considers that travel taxes
buda, Bahamas, Barbados, should be scrutinized ob-
Cuba, Dominican Repub- jectively to avoid exces-
lic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamai- sive burdens on travelers/
ca, Saint Kitts and Nevis, companies with a view to
Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent reducing taxes that have a
and the Grenadines, Trini- negative impact on travel
dad and Tobago. and, hence, on tourism de-
velopment.
Already, in 2013, at their
Worldwide Transport Con- Despite these policies, the
ference, the ICAO issued past decade has seen an
the following text to be in- unprecedented prolifera-
cluded in their Template tion of taxes levied on air
Article on Taxation (TASA) : passenger tickets in the re-
gion. This trend is causing
“…. Each party shall under- serious concerns and has
take to reduce to the full- a negative impact on the
est practicable extent and sustainable development
make plans to eliminate as of air transport, which, ulti-
soon as its economic con- mately, negatively impacts
ditions permit all forms of the tourism industry and the
taxation on the sale or use overall national economic
of international air trans- development.
port, including such taxes
for services which are not Caribbean governments
required for international are well advised that be-
civil aviation or which may fore making a decision, an
discriminate against it.” independent evaluation
by qualified professionals
According ICAO a tax is acquainted with econom-
a levy that is designed to ics should be made on the
raise national or local gov- impact of passenger taxa-
ernment revenues, which tion. A ‘neat’ idea to get
are generally not applied some extra money in the
to civil aviation in their en- coffers, may turn out to be
tirety or on a cost specific a monkeynomics. What
basis. ICAO has also rec- plays a crucial role and TOLL FREE 1 866 978 61 92
ognized that in the past contributes significantly to + 297 699 29 79
decades there is a devel- an economy must not hin- FOLLOW US ON: @arubaslife
opment of tourism taxes in dered by ineffective gov-
some regions, in particular ernment taxation. q info@arubaslife.com | www.arubaslife.com
Latin America, the Carib-
bean and to a lesser extent
in Africa, up to USD 55. In
many cases, revenues from
the tourism taxes such as
Tourism Enhancement Fee
and Travel Promotional
levies are not being rein-
vested in tourism develop-
ment. The Caribbean may
get the reputation of being
one of the bad guys on the
block in that regard.
The main principles on tax-
ation contained in ICAO
policies are frequently
adopted by internation-
al organizations in policy
documents. Some regional
organizations and industry
associations, such as the
Airports Council Interna-
tional (ACI) and the Inter-
national Air Transport As-
sociation (IATA), have also
developed policies that
are opposed to discrimina-
tory and unfair government
taxation on air transport.
The World Tourism Organi-
zation (UNWTO), while not