Banks prefer Games Tax to levy on foreign exchange
Monday, August 3, 2015 - 21:27
A proposal for government to finance the 2019 Pacific Games with Consumption Tax, instead of a levy on profit from foreign currency exchange transactions was presented by Bernie Poort from the ANZ Bank and Dan Henson from the Bank of the South Pacific to the Minister of Finance, Hon. ‘Aisake Eke during a Tonga Chamber of Commerce special meeting on Friday, 31 July.
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Comments
I'll show Tonga how to make
I'll show Tonga how to make money and not beg for it ..... Wake up call !!! I walked into 3 travel agents in NZ a few months ago, went up to the staff and said "I would like to take a holiday in Tonga, can you help me please" They (all 3 agencies) immediately said, "well we don't know too much about Tonga but how about Samoa or Fiji. I said no I want to go to Tonga .... to which they came back again and said they were very sorry but they don't get information or visits from Tonga representatives to be able to sell Tonga with confidence ..... WHAT !!!!!! Whats happened to the millions NZ Tax payers have given to Tonga to market Tonga, if Tonga marketed itself in NZ and Aussie people would come, each tourist spends around 4k when in Tonga, some more than that, and with this comes revenue and taxes etc etc ..... what was the last amount McCully donated ... 8 million NZD, and Key gave 2 million for the stadium, thats a huge amount of money that could do great things to market Tonga and take Tonga out of debt and a donor begging country. Tourism and farming are the get out of jail card for Tonga ..... not the games, Samoa lost 1.5 million hosting the All Blacks, it's many peoples guess Tonga will go further into debt with the games
....... and every traveler to Tonga that is taxed 100 dollars will NEVER come back......
I tend to ask myself the same
I tend to ask myself the same question as the above writer. Why on earth the Tongan Government wants to raise the departure tax when at the same time trying to get tourists/Tongan people to come to Tonga? I watch television every day and I can see the other Pacific Island nations "advertising" themselves to the people of NZ. The same thing I saw in Australia recently when I was visiting Melbourne. No where can you see or read anything about Tonga. Nothing! The question is, how can you make money if you sit on your back side and expect the world to know who, what and where Tonga is! To advertise on Forbes mags - who the hell in the average person will read that magazine? The only people who know Tonga are Tongans and if the departure tax goes up the tourism goes under! Good luck!