Juneau Considers Seasonal Taxes During Busy Cruise Season

With 1.7 million cruise friends crusing to Juneau, Alaska, each summer season, the Juneau Meeting has recognized a approach to improve town’s income. 

The native authorities is transferring ahead with a proposal for a brand new seasonal tax that will be put in place from April via September yearly, which coincides with the height cruise season. 

Throughout these months, the gross sales tax could be hiked as much as 7.5%. For the rest of the yr (October to March), the tax would then drop to three.5%. 

For context, the gross sales tax is at the moment set at a flat 5% year-round, so this is able to be a reasonably important change. 

If the proposal makes it to the poll and is handed, lawmakers have prompt an implementation date of January 1, 2026. 

The proposal is finally meant to attempt to stability the overwhelming impacts of cruise tourism on the area people in the course of the excessive season with the chance for financial achieve that may very well be put again into sustaining and bettering Juneau. 

“In what’s an more and more seasonal financial system, it is smart to seize most yield when you’ve all these of us on the town,” Meeting Member Alicia Hughes-Skandijs instructed KTOO.

Meeting Member Neil Steininger has additionally beforehand acknowledged that the plan would finally decrease the price of dwelling for the greater than 31,000 individuals who reside in Juneau.

This additionally wouldn’t be the primary time a system of this nature has been applied in Alaska, as different fashionable cruise ports like Ketchikan, Sitka, and Skagway all use a seasonal gross sales tax system. 

Town of Ketchikan has a gross sales tax price of 8% from April to September, which drops to five.5% between October and March. 

Sitka’s seasonal tax improve is extra reasonable, with taxes set at 6% from April 1 to September 30 and 5% for the remainder of the yr.

Lastly, Skagway has a gross sales tax of 5% for these similar peak months, which decreases to three% from October to March. 

Later in July, the finance committee will hear public touch upon the proposal earlier than making the ultimate resolution on if it ought to be added to the poll for the 2025 municipal election in October. 

How Will Seasonal Taxes Impression Cruisers?

Many individuals, between cruisers and locals, is probably not proud of this information.

Since a partial exception was revoked in 2022, the cruise traces have been on the hook for gross sales tax in Juneau, Alaska, for transactions occurring inside the Gastineau Channel.

This can be a key waterway in southeastern Alaska that separates the mainland from Douglas Island close to Juneau, and plenty of cruise ships do use this channel to succeed in the Juneau Cruise Port.

If the cruise traces should pay higher gross sales tax, they could then move the expense onto their passengers via elevated costs on new reservations.

Moreover, because of this shore excursions, searching for souvenirs, and even shopping for meals or drinks whereas visiting the port would turn into a bit costlier for passengers.

Learn Additionally: Alaska Cruise Ports: What Are Your Choices?

All that stated, future friends shouldn’t fear an excessive amount of concerning the seasonal tax, as we gained’t know if it would move for a number of months.

The proposal might also be revised or won’t move in any respect relying on the general public reception, which hasn’t been solely constructive.

Some locals expressed that they felt they had been being penalized for an over abundance of cruise tourism.

It’s value noting that there’s at the moment a each day restrict of 5 massive cruise ships within the port, with the variety of passengers capped at 16,000 on Sundays although Fridays and 12,000 on Saturdays.

“It would decrease the price of dwelling in the course of the winter. In the summertime it screws us over if we now have to purchase something,” one resident stated.

“Why not simply up the docking charges for the cruise ships and never burden the individuals who dwell right here,” one other questioned.

Others who depend on tourism for his or her livelihoods felt that this was an “anti-tourist” push that went a step too far.