Labour has announced a new tax!

[EvangelicalAboutButteredToast]

I know, I know, we’re all shocked.

In the King’s speech today. A new tourist tax that would be applied to overnight accommodation. It’s called the Overnight Visitor Levy Bill and could add around 5% onto hotel, B&B, guesthouse costs. They are pushing it through as we speak, I guess in time for summer.

From a BBC news article.

The GLA previously estimated in 2017 that a £1 a day levy, including international visitors, could raise £91m, and that a 5% levy could raise £240m.

https://www.tax.org.uk/mps-divided-over-proposed-visitor-levy-in-england

This makes quite interesting reading.

Get away with you. It’s not a privileged or tone-deaf comment. It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but with an element of truth. It’s clear that this tax has been put in place to help business owners manage the rising costs they’re dealing with. If we’re struggling to deal with rising costs, we need to either cut back or find a way to make more money.

I’m sorry - I hadn’t realised. Do you get a redundancy payout? And do you have an emergency fund to tide you over whilst you look for a new role?

The visitor levy became law in Scotland in September 2024, allowing Scottish local authorities to apply a 5% charge on overnight stays.

I’ve been there 3 years and I would assume they’ll be a small amount of money offered for redundancy, but as Labour has also done a beautiful job of decimating the jobs market I’ll have to see if I can find a new role.

Great news! It is standard elsewhere and most people that csn afford a hotel can afford £2 a night

Again
Its still being considered re flat rate or % and what values. Ie if mayor's can decide or government
And Scotland is devolved separately so not relevant for England's potential rates. As is wales

I think it's a good idea - it's very standard in Europe.

They're removing IHT exemption on pension pots. You may or may not see that as a new tax.

Apparently the VAT rates in Europe are far lower than ours, so the comparison isn’t quite there.

The average across Europe is 21.9% so that doesn’t fly. Nice try though.

How else do you want public funds to increase? Money doesn’t grow on trees and public services have already been significantly cut by Conservatives.

You pay this in pretty much every European city , so it’s nothing new or special.

I thought I’d ask AI to give us all the new taxes or increases to already established tax since they came into government, as I know this has been requested a few times.

I thought growing the economy, creating new jobs, getting more people off of welfare and into work was going to be the thing. Instead they’ve increased the welfare bill, taxed businesses harder so they are reducing their workforce and taxed people more. It’s bizarre.

It's a quid in manchester. I imagine a large portion of these taxes are paid for by businesses - 80% of hotels stays in the UK are for one night only which implies business use https://www.ukhospitality.org.uk/hotel-booking-trends-2026-what-the-data-means-for-uk-hospitality/

I travel a lot for work - my feeling at breakfast is a lot of travel is business. Bored looking solo people on their phones trying to make healthy choices from the buffet like myself.

They have been trying to do exactly what you set out: grow the economy, create new jobs and get people of welfare and into work.

This has been really difficult to do, partly because of factors out of their control (Iran war, Ukraine war, Trump tariffs etc) and partly because of factors in their control (taxes they introduced, such as the rise in National Insurance contribution rates for employers). I don’t think the NI contribution rates increase was a good idea, because it’s increased costs for employers and made it harder for them to find money to hire new workers.

Aside from that, it’s not easy to get us out of this mess, but I think Labour are really trying to help.

We should also be charging admission fees to overseas tourists for the "free" museums such as Science Museum etc. You have to pay for admission in most other countries. I agree them being free for UK residents, but no justification at all for them being free for rich foreign tourists just wanted a tourist attraction day out.

Agree.

Average, yes, but lots of other countries have lower rates on hospitality industries.

You should be entitled to contribution based JSA for six months, hopefully that will help you out a bit.

My hairdresser was saying that she was shocked at having to pay €200 in tourist tax when she and her fiancée visited Amsterdam for 5 days!

Is it not legislation so that local councils, labour, reform, ld, conservative can engage with their local populations over whether to institue one? The issue is where lical people ate having to fund infrastructure which us needed for tourists. The tax is so that it'z tourists who pag nog locals. Very sensible. What is your issue with it, OP

Are you a bot, OP? Or do you just not read below the DM headline grabbers? Read the speech, read the manifesto, explain to me why economy grew in lat quarter when all doomsayers (you?) Suggested something different would happen?

I had no idea holiday tax was thing anyway, but then I never go abroad.... just UK breaks.
How much is it likely to be? Or will that vary by area?