Taxe de sejour

[Jentay]

Have just received a letter to say that we will have to start charging taxe de sejour from 1st April, 2016 - Well, we have several bookings already (chambres d'hotes) beyond this date which are confirmed. Do I have to charge these people that have booked? the tariff is already agreed with them

[Moliere]

I would say, you have a choice. The taxe has to be paid, so either the guests pay it or you do. Depends how much it is relative to the goodwill you hope to engender in your guests, and whether it's significant enough to have an argument about.

Mols

[Jentay]

Thanks Moliere - my feeling is that I cannot ask my guests to pay it - but I don't see why I should either - perhaps I can try and argue this

[kevsboredagain]

To remain professional, you might have to swallow the cost yourself this year.

Our village did a similar thing and increased the tax by about 40% this year but it was not announced until November when the ski season starts in December. When I complained, explaining that most bookings were already confirmed, they suggested I simply showed them their letter explaining the increase. Yeah right!

[paolo]

No, you can't add to an agreed price.

[Pink Chris]

Looking at it from the other side, I can imagine the Office de Tourisme (or whoever imposes the tax in your area) arguing that it would be difficult to exclude those bookings which have already been taken. They've given you some notice of the start date which is something. Not ideal I know. ☹️

[Dusty]

I'm with the majority and would suggest you have to swallow the and not pass it directly on to your guests. You do need to point out to them they they are paying it as part of the cost of the stay. In our area all the money collected from taxe de sejour goes directly to support local tourism, whether its tourist information bureaus, foot paths etc., so I don't have a problem paying it.

[Ecosse]

No, you can't add to an agreed price.

If your guests are French, you could - there is an expectation amongst the French that you pay it and you can explain that it's not included in the room price so as to be fair to your guests with children who, if course, don't pay.

I wouldn't recommend arguing with the mairie - the amount you may lose this summer will be far less than the value of keeping them on side.

[French Cricket]

Having just had a look at your website, Jentay, I see there's no mention of taxe de séjour there so unless you have separate terms and conditions that allow you to vary the contracted cost of the stay you certainly can't ask any guests who are already booked to pay up.

Nor do I think you could (or even should) ask for dispensation not to pay it, so really that leaves you paying it yourself. Lots of places include it in their tariff anyway - we did ourselves when we operated as a cdh before this year. Even on your very reasonable rates it shouldn't be too onerous, and it does help to promote local tourism, which must be A Good Thing.

[vacancesthezan]

Have just received a letter to say that we will have to start charging taxe de sejour from 1st April, 2016 - Well, we have several bookings already (chambres d'hotes) beyond this date which are confirmed. Do I have to charge these people that have booked? the tariff is already agreed with them

When our OT started Taxe de sejour, the notes stated that bookings taken before the paperwork were sent out were except - although you did have to provide proof (contract, invoice etc). Have a good read of the not inconsiderable paperwork that you have already (or are likely to receive)!If you are on good terms with Mairie (Mayor) then also go in and ask. It may be that this is to something that they had thought of

Otherwise yes we agree then you cannot go back on an agreed price - Taxe de sejour (for all its many sins) is not hugely expensive so when the guests pay/arrive you need to state on your invoice that the price includes the Taxe de sejour of .... as per the instructions that you will have received (???)

[Sandra]

Have just received a letter to say that we will have to start charging taxe de sejour from 1st April, 2016 - Well, we have several bookings already (chambres d'hotes) beyond this date which are confirmed. Do I have to charge these people that have booked? the tariff is already agreed with them

100% sure you can't charge the guests and nor can the Tourist Board charge either.
We had exactly the same happen to us 3 years ago . We were notified in March but had accepted 90% of the bookings the previous year prior to tax of the day.
I can't find the letter( I asked for a note from Tourist board to say exempt because blah blah) but my explanation was accepted without a quibble, and yes I was slightly economic with the truth as I said 100% of bookings were taken prior to their notification. They used the word transparency a lot in the reason why it was acceptable not to pay. Just explain. Like us you will probably get a letter the following year to say why did we not pay and we wrote the explanation that as above, end of. Hope that gives you confidence.

[Jentay]

Thanks to you all for taking the trouble to respond. We are being called to a meeting next week when I suppose everything will be explained as we have not received any paper work yet. That is very interesting to know Sandra - it is a matter of principle - and I shall definitely ask the question at this meeting - I will not ask any guests already booked to pay more but don't see why I should pay for them. I am not against the idea of a taxe de sejour IF it is used for the benefit of the tourists. I don't know the details yet but, in the winter months, absolutely everything is shut around here and the tourist office is closed at the weekend except in July and August. This seems to be an area where little is provided for the tourist and they could do so much more

[vacancesthezan]

I am not against the idea of a taxe de sejour IF it is used for the benefit of the tourists. I don't know the details yet but, in the winter months, absolutely everything is shut around here and the tourist office is closed at the weekend except in July and August. This seems to be an area where little is provided for the tourist and they could do so much more

You have hit the nail on the head here with your final comments.

It is our own marketing that brings the tourists to stay in our village. The Tourist Office does very little and is effectively just an "admin centre" for cultural events that have little or nothing to do with tourism. For example: Last year they built a dry stone will in the village in conjunction with the village school.

Our TO closes on Sundays and Mondays so anyone arriving Saturday evening will not be able to use their facilities until Tuesday morning at the earliest.

We have refused to subscribe on principal - as we think have many of the owners of holiday accommodation. However we still are left with collecting and paying Taxe de sejour which is becoming a greater admin burden each year. for the small amount it raises. The admin (for the communes) must also be huge as everything is done on paper and must be checked before a manual bill is raised. We dont understand why they dont just put 100euros on Tax Hab for second homes or CFE on small businesses for the village and be done. It would surely raise more cash for less effort.

We feel sure that this picture is repeated throughout France.

[louloup]

I totally agree with the last post.

Administratively, taxe de séjour isn't considered income, so has a separate section on my invoices. At the end of the first year I filled in their form, a long list of each stay, how many people, how much they paid etc etc etc and sent them a cheque for the total which they rejected. I now do exactly the same thing every year, without the cheque, someone adds it all up again and sends me an invoice for the same amount! This takes about 2 months.

I used to be on the Office de Tourisme website but had endless calls asking me for percentage breakdowns of my clientelle, by every possible variation you could think of an also long questionnaires asking me to rate their "efforts" at tourist attractions. In fact my guests come for my house, the walks and my cooking. Others come for well run local sporting events or weddings/funerals etc. I have never had a guest who came because of anything O de T had organised.

They also turned up on my doorstep regularly with guests who hadn't booked (high season) and didn't have anywhere to sleep, but didn't want to pay much. Despite me insisting that I only ever take bookings in advance. I was very ill for a couple of years and had to manage my energy/bookings very carefully as I recovered. No wasn't negotiable, but they never stopped trying.

They put their prices up and up and I along with most other small Chambres D'Hôtes & single Gite owners, decided not to bother. I am now still on their site (for free!) presumably because so many of us decided not to continue that the site was becoming empty. I didn't mind paying a reasonable amount for a 'presence' locally and did get some bookings. Now they have lost that income.

[elena]

Hi Jentay!

Our taxe de séjour used to be 55 cts pppn and in mid March 2015 we got a letter saying it had been increased to 88 cts pppn backdated to 1st jan 2015.

Most of our bookings come in between the end of the prevoius Summer and beg of Feb so we were well on the way to being fully booked and all of the guests had been sent a contract with the 55 cts printed on it. We of course protested on the basis that it was unethical if not illegal to charge extra and we were not prepared to swallow such a hike in the charge which had been levied with no notice.

They said it had to be paid and they would write us a letter to give to guests saying that this was the case.

We ignored it and at the end of the year I filled in the forms with 55 cts or 88 cts depending on when people had booked and sent in the cheque with a covering letter.

They accepted it and nothing else was said.

Elena
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