ASTA, ATA Urges U.S. Lawmakers Not to Increase Aviation Taxes
ASTA, ATA Urges U.S. Lawmakers Not to Increase Aviation Taxes
ASTA has joined other members of the travel industry in asking federal lawmakers to look elsewhere for money to close the budget deficit, saying that increasing aviation taxes would only serve to hurt the U.S. transportation industry and the consumers who rely on it.
“To place additional taxes on airline travel might assist with closing the budget gap in the short run, but such actions will no doubt have unintended, long-term negative consequences as consumers already faced with tight budgets cut back on air travel or eliminate it altogether,” said Tony Gonchar, ASTA CEO. “The results could be catastrophic for an industry already struggling to recover from the recent recession which saw millions of Americans curtail their travel.”
The Air Transport Association, which represents major U.S. airlines, said that proposed tax increase, which would double the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) passenger security tax from $2.50 per flight segment to $5 per one-way trip, estimated to raise $15 billion over 10 years, is a 100 percent tax increase. It also protested a mew $25 per departure tax on commercial and general aviation users, estimated to raise $3 billion over 10 years.
The ATA said that the U.S. airline industry and its passengers are already subject to 17 different federal taxes totaling almost $17 billion annually, up from $3.7 billion 20 years ago. And, according to the ATA, the U.S. airline industry’s federal tax burden on a typical, $300 domestic roundtrip ticket has nearly tripled since 1972, from $22 to $61. This means that air travel is currently taxed at the same level as products and services that are taxed to discourage their use, including cigarettes and alcohol.
