In recent years, travel by private jet in the US has increased significantly and now accounts for every sixth flight.
However, the private jets pay only 2 percent of the taxes that fund the Federal Aviation Administration.
That’s according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies and Patriotic Millionaires.
has in the past few years travel with private jets in the USA has increased significantly, so that today one in six flights controlled by the Federal Aviation Administration (US Federal Aviation Administration) is operated by private jets. However, this extremely polluting form of travel, used by wealthy people, is heavily subsidized by the average American taxpayer.
Only two percent tax for private flights
According to a published on Monday Institute for Policy Studies and Patriotic Millionaires report US private jet passengers pay only 2 percent of the taxes that fund the FAA.
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Commercial airlines in the United States must pay a tax of 7.5 percent of the fare for each ticket. Private planes, on the other hand, only pay the kerosene tax. And while commercial airline ticket prices have risen in recent years, the cost of jet fuel has remained constant, the report says. Which means that commercial travelers have to pay an increasing share of taxes.
“Taxes on kerosene account for $186 million of the more than $8 billion in tax revenue allocated to the AATF for fiscal year 2021. That’s about 2 percent of the fund’s total tax revenue,” the report said. “More than half of the AATF’s tax revenue – $5.32 billion – came from passenger taxes.”
Commercial passengers subsidize private jet infrastructure
Private jets also use nearly 3,000 of the country’s smaller airports, which are not used by commercial airlines but are funded in part by the FAA, the report said. So taxpayers are subsidizing infrastructure that commercial airlines are not using. The funds that the FAA sends to these airports, known as general aviation airports, come largely from commercial passenger taxes.
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Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies and a co-author of the report, said the system means the average American not only suffers the negative environmental impact of private jets, but subsidizes them.
“Private aviation is excess,” Collins told Business Insider. “It is a symptom of the increasing concentration of wealth that we have witnessed over the past 40 years and which has accelerated over the past 15 years.” He added, “This is not a luxury that is not affecting the rest of us has – it has a tremendous impact.”
Traveling by private plane is significantly more polluting than commercial flights as private jets carry far fewer passengers. According to one Message by the non-governmental organization Transport & Environment from 2021, private jets emit up to 14 times more climate-damaging emissions per passenger than commercial aircraft.
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Taxes on private flights should be increased
The IPE and the Patriotic Millionaires commend the US governmentto double the federal tax on jet fuel from $0.219 per gallon to $0.438 per gallon (from €0.2 to €0.4). This is intended to prevent short-haul flights and finance climate protection measures. “If we can’t get rid of it, we should tax it heavily and use the money to build a better transportation system,” Collins said.
This article has been translated from English. You can find the original here.