‘Back door car tax will hit tourism’
Saturday 7th February 2009, 9:29AM GMT.
HIRE car companies could have to pay out thousands of pounds to buy new parking discs for all their vehicles.
The Environment Department plans to introduce a flat £26-a-year fee for any car owner who wants to park in a disc zone, regardless of location or length of stay, and that includes visitors to the island.
Dave Finn, who runs Avis Rent a Car, said it was an awful idea as he would have to buy parking discs for all 500 of his fleet.
He said it would be impractical to expect visitors to purchase one for a short trip to the island.
It would mean him having to pay out £13,000 before recouping it from add-ons that his customers would have to pay.
‘I don’t know how it’s going to work for hire cars,’ he said.
‘I think we would have to buy tickets for each of our cars and then pass the cost on because there is no way we could absorb it.’
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This has got to be one of the most ironic of articles. So what did these higher car companies do with all the 6month car tax they haven’t had to buy over the last year?
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Oh come on, say visitor hires car for two weeks, actual pro-rata cost £1.00, allow for the fact that the car is not fully rented out for a whole 52 weeks, lets say £3.00 add in a bit for admin, so maybe £4 at most for two weeks.
Insignificant!!
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As a frequent visitor to the Island and one who always hires a car I think this tax of about a £1 extra for parking would be reasonable providing the Hire companies do not try to profiteer from. I’m afraid however their past performance in being fair to customers is hardly a good one. I refer in particular to their so called “fuel” charge where by they charge £20 for a so called “half a tank” of fuel in a small car most of which was left by the previous hirer. I’m afraid the hire car industry in Guernsey, Europecar in particular, has a very poor image when it comes to exploiting their customer by profiteering much to detriment of the image of the Island and its economy.
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