[img]96|left|Shachar||no_popup[/img]Dateline Jerusalem — Winter has arrived. Thunder and lightning, torrential rains, and cable outage. That means no phone, no TV, no Internet, and the fear that I won't get my weekly column into my editor on time.
But Israel needs the rain because of the country's water shortage. As a result, there has been a high tax doubling or tripling the normal water bill for usage over a family's quota.
Everything seems to be taxed here. Every head of household is required to pay a TV tax of approximately $100/year. If you do not own a TV, you have to sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury that you do not own one and that you are aware of the consequences of not paying the tax. The consequences for non-payment include being sued by the TV tax authority, having someone show up unannounced at your door to confiscate your TVs, or not being able to leave the country until the tax is paid. But that usually occurs only when someone refuses to pay for several years.
Sales tax or VAT (value added tax) is approximately 18 percent. There is a special tax on buying a vehicle that makes the cost of the purchase almost twice that of a similar car in the U.S. There is a property acquisition tax for the purchase of an apartment or home. There is arnona, which is a municipal tax. You name it, there is a tax.
The Gift That Never Was Opened
Sometimes taxes are not called taxes, but “fees.” I tell my friends and relatives not to send me any gifts or packages because there is a customs fee that needs to be paid when items are sent in the mail. A friend's mother sent her children gifts for Chanukah. The “fee” to retrieve the package was so great that she sent it back to the U.S.
Every time you make a bank transaction, there is a fee. It is less expensive to pay the fee charged when withdrawing money out of an ATM machine than going inside the bank to deal with a bank teller. Many tellers have advised me to go outside to the ATM machine to avoid having to pay the teller's “commission.” Not only is there a charge to withdraw money, there is a charge to deposit money into your own account!
It is expensive to live here in Israel, but well worth the extra taxes, fees and commissions.
L'hitraot. Shachar.
Shachar is the Hebrew name of a California-based attorney and former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff who moved to Israel 2 1/2 years ago.
