HAR § 18-251-2-07 — RENTAL MOTOR VEHICLE, TOUR VEHICLE, AND CAR-SHARING VEHICLE SURCHARGE TAX to large groups

In January 1992, ABC conducts tours using five buses; uses one bus to transport one group of visitors that disembarked from a ship in Hilo to a luau and back to the ship; and does not use the remaining four buses, which are serviced that month. The tour vehicle surcharge tax for the month of January 1992 is imposed on six buses. Example: DEF Sightseeing (DEF) owns ten vans and minibuses with passenger capacities between eight to twenty-five persons. As part of a model transportation project, DEF agrees to use all of its vehicles to transport workers from neighborhood sites to central locations downtown in the morning and to return the workers back to the neighborhood sites in the early evening. The project lasts for one month. DEF also uses four of the vehicles in the evening to regularly transport tourists to places of interest. DEF uses the same vehicles each evening. One evening, however, one of the vehicles breaks down and DEF uses an alternate minibus for an hour. Because five of the vehicles only were used for commuting purposes, these are not subject to the surcharge tax for the month of the project. The surcharge tax is imposed on the other five vehicles — the four that were usually used in the evenings and the additional one used on the night of the breakdown. The total tour vehicle surcharge tax for the month is imposed on five minibuses.