I am of the opinion that people complain way too much for taxes and express way too little gratitude for the services provide for those taxes.  Everyone complains about road taxes, no one ever speaks positively for the fact that we have an interstate highway connecting two major cities.

However, I also think airlines and airline flights are over taxed.  Too much of the infrastructure (airports, FAA, etc) are financed with taxes on airline flights.  We’ve reached the point where a double digit percentage of the total cost of a domestic flight are often taxes.  That is too much.

In addition, by taxing only airline travelers, we end up not taxing others who benefit from that transportation infrastructure.

It’s not just the passengers who benefit from airports and airline flights.  Those airline flights and the ability to fly between point A and point B directly benefit our economies in many ways.  The provide a pathway for commerce to take place between two companies or locations or regions that otherwise would not exist.

Now the government wants to raise taxes more on airline flights and couches it as necessary to pay deficits and infrastructure costs and suggest it’s an inflation increase at best.

Taxes were very onerous long before today and they only increase.  There are many different taxes and they are largely imposed upon passengers to support airports, airport parking, airport roads, air traffic control, etc.  And we’re really not done with taxing travelers even at that point.

Consider the hotel and car rental taxes imposed on travelers in destination cities that can often be as much as 40% of the total cost of a car rental or 25% of a hotel rental.  That’s excessive.

Passengers should expect taxes on their travel.  Airlines should expect taxes for the infrastructure they use.  But the citizens of this country need to recognize that they benefit greatly from this commerce whether they fly or not and, as such, should also pay a portion.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax