Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Taxed to Death

I was booking my rental car for an upcoming trip.  I am a Avis Wizard member so I always look at Avis first, but then I dutifully shop around.   I was pleased to see that Avis had a $301 weekly charge for a compact car.  This was about $100 cheaper than what I saw outside of Avis.  So I booked it and Avis tells me it will be $387.48.  Huh!  What’s up?  Did I miss something?  So I look at the bill.

$.50 per day Energy Recovery Fee
$2.00 per day Florida Surcharge
$.02 per day Waste Tire/Battery Fee
$.78 per day Vehicle License Fee
$1.00 per day Customer Facility Charge
11.11% Concession Recovery Fee
6.0% Sales Tax

So $86.48 went to taxes and fees or 28.7% of my charge.  And we are going to a VAT tax like Canada to cover all of this drunken sailor spending?  The problem with these fees and taxes is they never go down, they only go up, and up, and up. 

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