My $375 Manchester NH Car Rental works out to $589 with the added taxes, fees and surcharges!

That's 57 percent in "fees" !

Airport fee, concession fee, tax, surcharge, State fee...blah blah blah ad infinitum!

These politicians stay in office promising not to raise taxes, then travelers get security-fee'd, road-tolled, fuel-surcharged, energy-fee'd and concession fee'd to death!

Soon it'll be cheaper to just BUY a car when you get to your destination!

P.S. That was with DOLLAR rent a car, which in many cities tacks on more fees than the other rental companies. BEWARE!

Just confirmed a full size car from Alamo in Manchester. Weekly rate is $187.99 plus $40.00 drop off fee for dropping it in Hartford. Fees are as follows:
Concession Recoupment fee $22.80
Motor vehicle Rental tax $15.04
Vehicle License Recoupment fee $3.65
Customer Facility Charge $15.75
Total FEES
$57.24

Total price for one week for full size car $285.23
Why must they recoup concession and license from me! How about this facility charge. What a rip off!
Why not just price the car at $285.23 for the week and be done with it.

Amen to that, John.
Easier to tax out of staters than one's own voting constituency, so travelers get hit hard in many areas.
Your untaxed base rate is competitive, though.

My favorite extra on Florida rentals is a charge for "battery" disposal fee. I think it is something like $1.75 per rental. So every time they rent the car they add that fee on (maybe 50 or 60 times a year) so they can pay a small fee to dispose of the battery which of course they never do, since they sell the rental cars when they are a year old with the battery still in them.

New Hampshire prides itself on having no state income tax. So of course all the other taxes are higher (including property taxes which of course directly affects only residents).

Folks...."The Traveller" is the most heavily taxed individual on the planet....

Here in Columbus our city forefathers decided to add another tax to rental cars to make up for the budget deficit. A tax payer watch group actually found that the city had no authority to do this and it went up for a vote before the citizens. The citizens unanimously defeated the tax.

It's not just travelers that pay the taxes either. There are a lot of local people who rent cars for busines and pleasure. And anytime your car is in the shop for a couple of days you need to rent a car.

I also bitzch a lot about those "out-of-towner" taxes too (and yes, my region imposes them too), especially during many trips to Williamsburg. I "enjoy" bringing up, "Didn't we fight some WAR over 'taxation without representation'?" That area is raising the hotel taxes to help pay for more promotion of the area.

My area uses it to pay primarily for an old theater and an arena. EXCUSE ME! Just because someone is visiting the area, it doesn't mean they're going to those 2 venues. Wanna finance theaters & arenas? Then tax the ticketholders, not a complete different set of consumers, the hotel guests.

Yeah well look at your phone bill some time.

Of course it's easy to turn visitors into Santa Claus since they don't vote; moreover taxing visitors is close to a "sin tax" in some people's minds.

Question: how many of you or your kids ever had a social studies class where the teacher talked about how state or local government collects and distributes money? Or that even talked about local government at all? Chances are the answer is not many, probably because the teachers, themselves both providers and users of public funds, don't understand it themselves, because their college teachers didn't understand it because...

So it ends up that the electeds look for ways to pump up revenues to pay for whatever (cop salaries, health departments, baseball stadiums) where the revenue source is "under the radar." Ta da.

I've paid 39% in Providence and 40% in Colorado Springs, but 57% really DOES take the cake!

Those "fees" are a better way to raise revenues than general taxes sometimes. Many cities have chosen to finance new sports stadiums by adding fees to the city's hotels, car rental, etc. The tax payer is not burdened with extra taxes, and the business which will benefit from a new stadium in there area bear the cost. It worked in San Antonio.

Yike! This reminds me of the "resort fee" that hotels are adding to their bills these days. Of course, the fee is not quoted in their price!

I got burned once--now I always ask.

There is another way to look at this also. I live in Maui county where most residents work in service and tourism. Wages are relatively while the cost of living is higher. We have a resident population of about 120,000 and 2.5 million visitors come here each year. On any given day we are host to 15,000 to 20,000 visitors. While the visitors do generate revenue, due to foreign and off-island investment, a fair percentage of the money generated by tourism does not stay in Maui County.

The visitors all put an extra strain on our infrastructure and county services. We need to improve and maintain roads, airports, beaches and parks. We need to have adequate police, lifeguards, fireman and paramedics. While I am sure all of the Fodorites are polite, safe and courteous, practice water conservation, recycle and respect our aina when on our island, this is not true for all of the visitors here. The county spends a lot of money each year rescuing and cleaning up after our less conscientious guests.

So, should the residents alone bear the cost of these services through higher property taxes? Should the county and state raise the sales tax and place an additional finacial burden on residents on their everyday purchases, such as food, clothing and household items? Or is a more realistic approach to impose visitor fees and hospitality taxes?

Here_today
What does Concession recoupment fee of $22.80 and vehicle license recoupment fee of $3.65 and customer facility charge($2.25 a day, I'm taking the car AWAY from their facility for 7 days) have to do with taxes? Do you think this money goes to the local government?

"Concession recoupment" usually refers to the rental car agency reimbursing itself for the concession fees it pays to the (public) airport authority, be it a Port Authority or a branch of local government. So while it's not a tax directly to the consumer, it's the result of the car agency paying a tax itself to the local government.

Take that up with the rental company. I was addressing previous posts regarding taxes.

But facility and parking fees are imposed by the airport. When I rent locally I always rent from a location not at the airport.

I disagree with "JOR"'s assertions "The tax payer is not burdened with extra taxes, and the business which will benefit from a new stadium in there area bear the cost."

It is the LOCAL taxpayer who's not burdened ... I would assume that we ALL are taxpayers. And in the case of the cost of building an arena being paid for by hotels ... it's the GUESTS of the hotels, not the hotels themselves who pay for the arena. Many of those guests have no reason to visit the arena, why should they pay? Let the Arena visits pay their OWN way!

While I don't like it, I don't think that charges DIRECTLY related to car use (eg: airport concession fee) are unfair, just not goo business, and the costs of higher airport space should be built into the cost of the car rental, not added-on.

Beach property costs more than a strip mall at the edge of town .... how would people react to a restaurant on the beach posting menu prices, but with a 35% concession recovery fee, a 7.5% beach erosion recovery fee and a 4% beach facility fee all added to the prices? That would never happen because locals (who also use the beach) would never accept it. But they do accept "sticking it" to visitors.

rb_travelerxATyahoo, I think you just now figured out how a free market economy works. Welcome to the western (and eastern) world.

Its sort of like "if you don't like the TV show, change the channel" I don't like all the surcharges either, and it will make a difference in whether or not I choose to go somewhere and use their services.

In the end, high taxes/fees charged towards visitors discourage them to come. Local business will suffer in the long-term.