Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), and Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union, recently urged elected officials in a letter to not allow for the increasing or uncapping of federal taxes and fees on air travel, also known as the Passenger Facility Charge (PFC).
“Government taxes and fees already overburden air passengers – taxes make up over 20 percent of the cost of an average domestic flight,” Norquist said.
Sepp said that average air travelers now pay a higher average tax rate on airline tickets (21 percent) than they do on a 1040 income tax return.
Congress should be working to remedy, rather than worsen this situation,” Sepp said.
According to Federal Aviation Administration data, overall PFC collections increased 94.9 percent between 2000 and 2015, which is twice as fast as the increase in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, Sepp said.
In total, $27 billion of revenue was collected by airports in 2015, which included $3 billion in PFC collections, alone.
The airports claim that the PFC increase is to help fund infrastructure improvement projects, but with almost $1 billion per year in airport revenues being diverted away from airport projects, the airports should make better use of the tools they already have before increasing the PFC, officials said.
“It is entirely possible for airports to continue making such improvements without increasing the cost of flying,” Norquist said.