|
 |
 |
|
Lawmakers press Obama to drop private jet tax increase
A bipartisan pair of lawmakers in the House of Representatives are calling on President Obama to ground his proposal to raise taxes on private airplane take-offs.
In his $3.8 trillion budget proposal for the 2013 fiscal year, Obama reiterated a call for a per-takeoff fee on flights that could run as high as $100. He had first included the idea in the suggestions he made to the failed supercommittee of lawmakers tasked with cutting a minimum of $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit.
The Obama administration has said the increase could bring in up to $7.4 billion over the next 10 years. Obama also proposed a $7.50 increase in the security taxes commercial airline passengers pay each way on trips, which his administration has said would generate another $25.5 billion.
But Reps. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) and Jerry Costello (D-Ill.), chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on Aviation, said the president should put the flight tax proposals back in the hangar now that a funding bill for the Federal Aviation Administration has been approved.
“This letter is another clear example that user fees are a non-starter in Congress,” Costello said of a letter he and other lawmakers wrote to Obama about the proposed general aviation fee.
Petri added: “Almost half of the House members signed, and we would have no trouble getting a majority if this proposal were ever to be advanced to the full House — which it won’t.”
Both the general aviation and commercial airline industries have strongly opposed Obama’s flight tax proposals, arguing that their industry is being unfairly targeted as a revenue source.
“Our customers are overburdened with taxes, and airlines have been viewed as effective tax collectors for the federal government for far too long,” Airlines for America President Nicholas Calio said this week in a news release.
After Obama first announced his 2013 budget proposal, the Alliance for Aviation Across America said in a news release: “On behalf of thousands of small businesses, charitable groups, flight schools and communities around the country that depend on general aviation, we are deeply disappointed in the President’s inclusion of ‘user fee’ taxes in his FY 2013 budget proposal.
“For these businesses and communities, which represent the backbone of our economy, an added per-flight user fee tax would saddle these organizations with a huge, unnecessary tax burden at a time when they are already struggling to recover from the economic downturn.”
