{"id":13582,"date":"2016-04-15T08:04:18","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T15:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/cruise-association-president-ketchikan-taxes-not-a-concern\/"},"modified":"2016-04-15T08:04:18","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T15:04:18","slug":"cruise-association-president-ketchikan-taxes-not-a-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/cruise-association-president-ketchikan-taxes-not-a-concern\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruise association president: Ketchikan taxes not a concern"},"content":{"rendered":"

KETCHIKAN <\/strong>\u2014 Cruise Line International Association President John Binkley says the group\u2019s suit against Juneau shouldn\u2019t concern Ketchikan.<\/p>\n

CLIA filed a suit on Tuesday alleging that Juneau has misused millions of dollars in revenue from its municipal commercial passenger vessel taxes \u2014 head taxes \u2014 since 2001.<\/p>\n

While an elaborate whale statue and a man-made park project on the Juneau waterfront have attracted attention, included in CLIA\u2019s suit is a request to prohibit \u201cimposing or collecting (head taxes) in any amount.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juneau levies an $8 head tax on top of the state\u2019s $34.50 CPV tax. The City of Ketchikan levies its own $7 tax on top of the state\u2019s, but Binkley told the Ketchikan Daily News on Wednesday that Ketchikan\u2019s spending or taxes in general aren\u2019t issues for the association.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really is just an issue of what the expenditures are,\u201d Binkley said during a phone interview. \u201cIn Juneau\u2019s case, we\u2019ve felt for some time that the expenditures have strayed farther and farther from the dock.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said CLIA has \u201cworked closely with Ketchikan and we have a good relationship with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

CLIA is asking the U.S. District Court for Alaska for a permanent injunction against imposing \u201cexcessive\u201d head taxes, imposing any head taxes at all, and \u201cfurther use of the revenues from (head taxes) to fund activities that are unrelated to and do not benefit the vessels and cruise passengers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juneau is the only community named in the lawsuit, but the constitutional questions raised by CLIA could have far-reaching consequences in Southeast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt depends on where the courts would draw the line,\u201d Binkley said, noting that if the courts threw out Juneau head taxes, \u201cthat would be a precedent that was set.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Alaska Legislature and in court, the cruise industry for years has strained against local and state head taxes.<\/p>\n

In an April 2014 speech to Ketchikan Visitors Bureau membership, Binkley, a former state representative, singled out Juneau head tax spending as unacceptable.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Legislature commissioned an audit of its own CPV program. Late last year auditors examined municipal books to determine how state head tax dollars, which are separate from local programs, have been spent.<\/p>\n

Binkley said the lawsuit against Juneau isn\u2019t connected to the state\u2019s audit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s two distinct issues,\u201d he said. \u201cThey really don\u2019t they don\u2019t have anything to do with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the audit process, local and state lawmakers have commented that while some Juneau spending was questionable, other communities had behaved correctly, including Ketchikan.<\/p>\n

However, there are some similarities between Juneau spending listed in CLIA\u2019s complaint and how Ketchikan has spent head tax dollars.<\/p>\n

CLIA argues Juneau has spent $2 million for city bus services and $594,000 for the Juneau International Airport during the past 15 years.<\/p>\n

In southern Southeast, head taxes have been used by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough to subsidize both the Ketchikan International Airport and the borough\u2019s transit system, but the borough only received head tax money from the state. It doesn\u2019t levy its own tax.<\/p>\n

Where the two communities differ is on general government spending: CLIA alleges Juneau has used $22 million in head tax dollars on general government expenses \u2014 something Ketchikan governments have never done.<\/p>\n

Borough Attorney Scott Brandt-Erichsen said that because Juneau is the only community named in the suit, what it \u201cmeans for anybody else is not totally clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t have any comment about how some of Juneau\u2019s spending compares to that of the borough, but said he sees several main questions to ask the Borough Assembly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat, if anything, does the City of Ketchikan or the Ketchikan Gateway Borough want to do about (the suit)?\u201d Brandt-Erichsen said. \u201cDo we want to try to participate in some fashion? Do we just want to see what happens? Do we care?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KETCHIKAN \u2014 Cruise Line International Association President John Binkley says the group\u2019s suit against Juneau shouldn\u2019t concern Ketchikan. CLIA filed a suit on Tuesday alleging that Juneau has misused millions of dollars in revenue from its municipal commercial passenger vessel taxes \u2014 head taxes \u2014 since 2001. While an elaborate whale statue and a man-made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13582"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}