Taxing ships and Passagers?

This is getting crazy. Tax ASD as I pass Astoria? Toll shipping channel?

https://www.dailyastorian.com/news/...cle_8a4e9956-03b7-11e9-bd98-0337f0c45339.html

I don't understand how or why this would apply to ASD or any moderately sized recreational boat. This appears to be aimed at commercial traffic and maybe, just maybe mega yachts. Pier 1 is not needed or used by ASD sized rec vessels, you would use the west or east mooring basin. Nor would ASD use Merchants Exchange or a ship's agent.

In the article a study determined the City/Port has the authority to to implement a tax out to the Washington/Oregon boarder. Yes it could affect recreational boats like ASD if they decide to apply it as such.

I am surprised King County (Read Seattle) hadn't thought of this first!

S-H-H-H-H-H-H. Don't say that too loud or Seattle will hear you.


I'd better not expand on that or I'll get my butt kicked off TF.

Not surprising. Airports are taxed; why not sea ports. Somebody has to pay for it. Why not the user.

So, can I charge a tax for each car that drives by my house? Sweet!

Airstream345 said:

So, can I charge a tax for each car that drives by my house? Sweet!

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You probably could if you built and/or maintained the road.

AusCan said:

You probably could if you built and/or maintained the road.

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Sure, but I don't think the port of Astoria is maintaining the ocean that ships pass by on.

Airstream345 said:

So, can I charge a tax for each car that drives by my house? Sweet!

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Well there is the fuel tax. Some in King County want to eliminate the road gas tax and charge you by the mile. A device would be install on you vehicle and it would send out to the State how many miles you have driven and then you would get a tax bill.

Not a long stretch to see that this could also spill over into recreational boating in Puget Sound or the Columbia River.

Right of Passage restricted.

In Canada it’s referred to as vote netting and it requires parliamentary approval:
“An authority to expend certain revenues to offset related expenditures. Authority to operate net voting must be obtained from Parliament on an annual basis. Revenues not associated with costs incurred must be recorded as non-tax revenues.”

Jim

I'm not familiar with the area, but according to the article the issue is funding to renovate a pier that is used as a tie up point for ships waiting for safe passage. Perhaps others from the area can say more. I imagine the pier was probably originally built with federal funds as part of the Columbia River water way. Now it needs repairs, and who's going to pay?


This seems to be a pretty and example of a pretty common funding challenge. You could use general taxation, but there are good arguments for fees and taxes that place to costs with the user of the service or product. The proposed fee places the cost burden on the ships that might make use of the pier. On the surface, that seems a better approach than other sources of funding. Unless of course the pier isn't needed?

The trouble with such taxes is that once implemented they never seem to go away, long after the pier or whatever has been repaired.

LaBomba said:

The trouble with such taxes is that once implemented they never seem to go away, long after the pier or whatever has been repaired.

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Ditto - Just a thought, if the FEDS built it, are they not responsible & liable for maintaining it? Unless they deeded it to the city. Me thinks after the repairs from the new taxes, the money will be re-allocated to a social program not associated with maritime use. Just a thought.

TONTOROSS said:

Ditto - Just a thought, if the FEDS built it, are they not responsible & liable for maintaining it? Unless they deeded it to the city. Me thinks after the repairs from the new taxes, the money will be re-allocated to a social program not associated with maritime use. Just a thought.

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I think the key here is that there is always a more complex problem trying to be solved, with human interests on all sides. I just don’t think one should jump to conclusions without at least a basic understanding of the problem and the issues.

And federal funding is the broadest based fee or tax possible, so furthest from directing the cost towards the beneficiaries of the spending.

If you think that’s bad, I just spent 3 days in a transient slip in Alabama and they charged me a lodging tax.

Astoria tax.

A. It only applies to merchant vessels.
B. You could always just stay on the Washington side...

There is an issue of vessels anchoring in the basin, using services, not taking fuel, waiting to be loaded up river...sometimes for weeks. As that stretch of water in particular is my bread and butter, I say tax away.

You don't? Have you been sleeping in a cave. This is just the start. The camel getting his nose in the tent. The federal income tax started in 1913. It was a flat rate of 3%.
Get real people.

"Why not" asks AusCan? Why not, because they waste the money, just like in Australia and Canada.

Yeah...sorry, but I like those roads, schools, USCG, and everything else that has to get paid for.

Do you really think that any of these agencies are underfunded? They waste the money so they can get a bigger allotment next year. I have a good friend who is a civil engineer in a state government agency. At the end of the last fiscal year he was told he had to get rid of $2 million just in his small office. He is a Vietnam refugee boat person who graduated for the US Air Force Academy and graduate school. He is horrified at the waste. My son was a senior airframe design engineer at a major defense contractor. He too was aghast at the waste and quit at age fifty to go into his own private business unrelated to what he had been doing. There are hundreds of thousands of examples like this in every federal, state, county and city government and all their related agencies and hangers on.

Again, sorry...you're talking to a federal employee.

I'm all for reducing waste, fraud, and abuse...changes nothing.

LaBomba said:

The trouble with such taxes is that once implemented they never seem to go away, long after the pier or whatever has been repaired.

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So true. About 30 years ago my state introduced an extra fuel tax, called"3 x 3",i.e. 3c a litre for 3 years. We still have it.

The Pier is part of the port system at Astoria. It is a port of call for cruise ships. The port does receive significant funding from transients but I think the area outside the port (the city that controls the port) does not have significant infrastructure and so the port funds a great deal of the local economy. They don't want to increase the cost of calling on the port for cruise ships and destroy that economy. They look outwards for ways to find other monies to support the port and they see these ships going by...There is a little more to it.

The Pier 1 is reserved for emergency repair of ships found unsafe by coast guard inspection. When this happens, there are docking and repair fees paid to the port during the time the pier is in service. Seems the problem is that it is not in continuous use. The idea is that since it is set aside for the convenience of commercial shipping in case they need emergency (or even maintenance) prescribed by the safety inspection prior to going to sea, the convenience of that pier could be charged to virtually all commercial shipping transiting the area.

A good point made by maritime law experts is that it may not fly due to previous attempts to invoke similar fees at other locations being shot down by the federal government as it involves international maritime law of transit. If Astoria is successful invoking a fee for all passing ships, this fee will be taken into consideration along with all other costs of doing business in all areas serviced by the waters surrounding the port.

Additionally, if they are successful, other ports may do the same. I think the affect on maritime law will be the most talked about aspect if the port is successful in implementing a transit fee in any form.

Finally, if they are successful in implementation, they have the problem of prior notification. They will be required to notify all transiting ship services of their intention to implement prior to implementation. Depending upon the vehicle they use to publish the information, publication itself may be cost-prohibitive, depending upon of course their fee structure.