News Social Improvement
3 min.
From the 1st of July 2022, onwards, every non-resident of 13 years or older visiting the island of Bonaire will have to pay a tourist tax of 75 dollars per person and per visit. Children up to 12 years old and Bonaire residents will need to pay $10 per person and visit, while Bonairian students studying abroad will be exempt of the tax. The new structure for tourist taxation has caused controversy on the island though, as the initial proposal for the overhaul by coalition parties Union Patriótiko Boneriano (UPB) and Movementu di Pueblo Boneriano (MPB) did not include the charging of the tax for every visit.
Why is tourist tax being revised in Bonaire?
The new tourist tax system, which is officially called the entry tax system, is meant to replace the current room tax and rental car tax systems on the island. These two taxations were charged per person to people who were renting a room and/or a car in Bonaire. Obviously aimed at tourists, the local authorities, in their own words, had been complaining for some time that these systems were leading to a lot of missed tax revenues from private landlords and people visiting family on the island. They expect the new tourist tax to allow for better control and therefore better tax collection.
Controversy
The controversy that has arisen as a result of the concept for the new tourist tax has to do with an apparent amendment to the original proposal about which the involved coalition partners were not informed. They had proposed an increase of the tax from 50 dollars to 75 dollars, but not for this tax to be paid at every visit. The initial proposal was explained as having a so-called zero rate for people who visit the island more than once within twelve months. In practice, this meant that the new tourist tax would have to be paid once a year, regardless of how many times the person in question visits Bonaire.
This zero rate has been removed from the most recent version of the proposal though, and this has upset UPB and MPB. They argue that by removing the zero rate for people visiting Bonaire more than once a year, locals are actually much more affected by the new tourist tax structure. Where a tourist nowadays already has to pay 67 dollars’ worth of tourist tax and car rental tax, family members and friends of Bonaire residents don’t have to pay anything when they visit. When the new system comes into place, the tax burden for a non-resident visitor will increase from 67 dollars to 75 dollars, compared to an increase of zero dollars to 75 dollars per person for friends and family members of Bonaire residents. On top of that, this latter group is generally also much more likely to visit Bonaire more than once a year than the average tourist, which only amplifies the impact of the new tourist tax system on people directly related to the island.
Money talks
Despite the valid concerns from UPB and MPB, new tourist tax proposal without zero rates is set to come into force from July 1st onwards. Hennyson Thielman, Commissioner at Openbaar Lichaam Bonaire (OLB; Public Entity Bonaire), expects an increase of six million dollars a year in terms of tourist tax revenues when the new structure comes into place. “The revenues will mainly be used to improve the quality and sustainability of tourism in Bonaire”, he says about the new tourist tax, “We have been discussing the introduction of this tax for years and this step would not have been possible without a stable Executive Council and a singular vision for the future of Bonaire”. Although this sounds good, it should also be noted that Thielman is a member of MPB as well as the Council that unpleasantly surprised people with the unannounced omission of the zero rate for friends and family members of Bonaire residents. This is surely not the last we have heard on the matter.
The basis for this article was originally published on www.antilliaansdagblad.com in April 2022.
