Alaska to charge $50 more per person......

[mrskmirolla]

I don't know how the rest of you feel but I am outraged with this!!:mad: The cruise industry has given the State of Alaska a boost in their economy. Yes, I said State as in the United States of America, if this goes through does it mean when we drive into Alaska we will be charged?? Okay so then California wants to charge $50 per person to enter or any other state in OUR UNITED STATES. Oh please tell me how the rest of you feel.:confused:

Kathy

[jhannah]

There have two recent threads on this. Here's a link (http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=403180) to one of them. The $50 head tax is just a part of this legislation.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Most people won't even know that they will be paying an extra $50 per person - many people don't ask for specific breakdowns of all the taxes and port charges. They just ask what the final bill will be.

[dot73]

Paying the $50 wouldn't bother me if I knew that the money was going directly to keeping Alaska environmentally safe i.e. hiring extra people to make sure the cruise ships are not discharging anything into the water or air that they shouldn't. It would be like paying an entrance fee to a national park to pay for the upkeep. However, if this $50 is just going into general tax revenue, then I don't particularly like it. I always believed that Alaska did quite well with all its natural resources. In any event, it won't stop me from going again to Alaska despite the cash grab.

[kruskat]

Interestingly, in AK there has been no sales tax on product. On a recent cruise to the state if you showed ID indicating you are a resident you were not charged tax while out of state cruisers were. When visiting other states there, at least from my experience, there was either a tax or not and not one added exclusively for visitors. Can anyone shed light on this?

[jhannah]

Paying the $50 wouldn't bother me if I knew that the money was going directly to keeping Alaska environmentally safe i.e. hiring extra people to make sure the cruise ships are not discharging anything into the water or air that they shouldn't. This is part of the legislation, having such a person ride along to monitor the ship's systems.

[dakrewser]

Interestingly, in AK there has been no sales tax on product. On a recent cruise to the state if you showed ID indicating you are a resident you were not charged tax while out of state cruisers were. When visiting other states there, at least from my experience, there was either a tax or not and not one added exclusively for visitors. Can anyone shed light on this?

Hawaii is actually worse, allowing a dual price structure for those who live there and those who don't.

[RedmondCruiser]

From what I've heard, this head tax will probably be overturned. From previous threads on this subject the tax would go into the general fund, which has nothing to do with environmental subjects. It amounts to an entrance fee to a state and this is against the US Constitution. In all probablity this initiative was purposely written in a flawed manner so that when overturned by the courts they can plead that the courts are stacked against them. We have just such a person in the State of Washington. We will have to see how this shakes out.

[Nancyquilts]

I'm with dot73 on this.
On the subject of sales tax, as we visit grandchildren here every year, we buy quite a bit, and none of it has ever been taxed by Anchorage. Some cities have their own sales tax, and I don't know their policies. Nancy