Archive for Tavel
January 15, 2008 at 3:44 am · Filed under Tavel
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December 31, 2007 at 7:54 pm · Filed under Tavel
Low lying European ski countries last year who saw a decline in ski holiday visitors, including Andorra, have been investing in her facilities to try and tempt the skiiers she lost back for the 2008 season.
In the past Andorra has grown in stature from a destination offering cheap ski holidays to one that can compete with the best that Europe has to offer, with a growing number of ski holidays being taken in the country over the last decade to the point where it was attracting some ten million tourists a year.
But unexpectedly the rise in visitors to Andorra came to a screeching halt for the 2006/7 ski season, and the ski slopes closed two weeks earlier than anticipated due to a lack of snow that saw many other resorts in Europe, especially in countries with low lying slopes like Austria, badly affected by the lack of natural snow.
The Andorra economy is unusually reliant on the ski holidays industry, the other main activity being the financial and banking industry due to her tax haven status, and the Andorra weather refused to play her part last year. Some estimates suggest takings for supermarkets, petrol stations, department stores and supermarkets were down some 40 per cent compared to 2006 in the main ski holiday areas.
The good news for the Andorra ski holiday industry as it hopes for an improved 2008 holidays season is that the snow - notably absent last year - started to fall in November, and long range weather forecasts suggest that January through to April could see enough snow to give Andorra skiiers good snow depth, and little if any need for snow cannons to make up any shortfall.
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December 31, 2007 at 7:51 pm · Filed under Finance, Tavel
Monaco and Andorra - Europe’s top two tax havens - are seeing an influx of funds to their banks, despite governments worldwide actively trying to stop their citizens using tax havens to bank their money.
The financial industry in Monaco is attracting money from wealthy individuals seeking a degree of privacy, and keeping their assets away from the clutches of their governments at record levels with most of the money coming from the Middle East and Europe.
While the banks will not disclose the volume of money they have attracted recently, some industry analysts estimate it could be as much as 20 billion Euros over the last eighteen months, with 70 billion in total managed assets overall.
Over the last year and a half some of the big names in the banking and finance industries have set up offices in Monaco, including Goldman Sachs. And Monaco does not seem perturbed by outside influence unduly as the principality hopes to double the amount in her banks in the coming years.
And it’s not just Monaco attracting funds - Europe’s other tax haven Andorra has also seen an increase in interest, with new accounts in being established at the Andorra banks at a good pace. With tax havens attracting high volumes of funds it makes them less likely to co-operate with the OECD, who ultimately try to reign in and police money worldwide.
One company who specialise in European tax havens thinks that the OECD are wrong to assume that the money being deposited in Andorra and Monaco banks is by people simply wanting to keep their money offshore - it’s also due to high net worth individuals taking Monaco and Andorra residency.
‘The number of people who have moved themselves as well as their money offshore has been rising over the last ten years, and in particular the number of UK ctizens moving to Andorra and Monaco has been high in the last two to three years, and their combined assets are significant. Taxes in the UK for example have been increasing, and it’s no coincidence that while this has been happening so have the number of Britons moving out of the country. Rather than trying to dissuade people from doing so by painting tax havens as the villains they would get better results if they reduced direct and indirect taxes at home, negating the need to consider a tax haven in the first place.’
Evidence of the rising number of arrivals in Monaco for her tax haven status is the local property market, which is on a par with London as the most expensive property in Europe. And recent economic activity in Monaco includes the sale of one of the well known Monaco hotels - the Fairmont - showing that Monaco is able to attract investment not just from the financial services industry.
Particularly notable among the new arrivals in Monaco in recent years has been the British, with some Monaco real estate agents suggesting that around forty per cent of their enquiries now come from the UK.
The top rate of tax in the UK has been 40 per cent for some years now, but an increase in the number of indirect taxes - or stealth taxes as they are popularly known - often means a tax take of over 50 per cent for high earners.
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December 31, 2007 at 7:48 pm · Filed under Tavel
Cheap flights from low cost airlines operating out of the UK and other European countries could be under threat as the Conservative Party - once a campaigner and implementer of lower taxes - has called for purchase tax to be introduced to domestic flights.
The tax would add up to 17.5 per cent on to the cost of a flight from one British city to another, but while flights to the European mainland and popular holiday islands such as Menorca aren’t specifically mentioned, one travel company believes the new policy will inevitably lead to higher fares for flights not just within Britain, but elsewhere too.
The Tory policy review calls for the UK to be a leader on green growth, noting that it was illogical for flights to attract less tax than cars and trains, with David Cameron, the Tory Party leader, saying that much of the report would be included in their manifesto at the next British General Election, which could be up to two years away, but at the time could have been just weeks away as Prime Minister Gordon Brown considered an early poll.
‘It’s not so much that we’re convinced the Tories will win the next election and tax domestic flights’, say the travel company, ‘But by proposing new taxes on flights it leads the door open to the Labour Party, who are more likely to win, to use taxes on flights as a revenue raiser with no opposition from the Tories who are traditionally seen as the tax cutting party. We have no doubt that flights will be taxed a lot more in 2008 because the Tories have now made it a soft target for the British government of any political persuasion and the Treasury when they prepare their annual budgets.’
Citing Menorca as an example, the company points to the holiday industry on the island being a major employer, and the Menorca map changing over the years as new resorts have been built to accommodate additional visitors.
‘One of the other aspects of the report that is a worry for the holiday industry’, continues the travel company, ‘Is that new runways at Stansted, Gatwick and Heathrow Airports are all ruled out - all three airports serve London and the South-East of England. Any increased demand for example for Menorca holidays probably won’t be able to be met without increased capacity, inevitably leading to a consequence of higher prices overall.’
From the environmental lobby the Green Party described the proposals as ‘fiddling around the edges when what is needed is urgent and radical action’, adding that the Tory eco-taxes would hit the poorest in society hardest.
Menorca
Citing Menorca as typical of the areas that could be affected most by additional flight taxes, the travel company takes the view that any downturn in visitor numbers and the volume of bookings for holidays and hotels in Menorca would hit an island that relies heavily on tourism.
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