Bad taxes (aviation edition)

As most people know, there are a lot of taxes, about 15%, on our airplane tickets.  Thomas Frank (not the one concerned about Kansas) at the USA Today just wrote an article about where some of that money goes, namely to support rural airports used mainly by recreational pilots and corporate chieftains.  I don’t know enough to say anything more than that the article is worth a read, but this does strike me as a poorly directed use of tax revenue.  Compared to almost every other country’s international airports, ours are pretty decrepit, and this revenue could surely go to better uses than under served airports.

NPR’s Interview with Thomas Frank

Listener feedback on NPR’s story

Money quote:

The Airport Improvement Program is funded mostly by the nation’s airline passengers, who pay a 7.5% sales tax on each ticket and a $3.60 fee for each flight. The money goes into an FAA fund that pays for airport projects and the air-traffic-control system.

A business traveler who flies once a week could pay $2,000 a year in such taxes. Private pilots pay taxes on airplane fuel that cost about $2.87 for a one-hour flight in the average piston-engine plane.

The result: Commercial travelers subsidize many airports they never use, says the Air Transport Association, the main U.S. airline trade group.

“The passengers who fly on airlines and the airlines are paying for projects at airports where we don’t fly,” association CEO James May says.