Originally Posted by
NEDude
Most of the tax breaks come from State and local governments. For example United Airlines gets a $20 million annual tax break on fuel purchases from the State of New Jersey alone. In 2012 the State of New York subsidized airlines to the tune of $227 million in tax breaks. These are separate from the AATF you mention.
Speaking of the AATF, sorry, but that goes against you too. International flights are charged at $18.30 (FY 2018) per person, per segment, and provide about $3.9 Billion of the $15 Billion in revenue collected. According to the DOT's Bureau of Transportation Statistics, in 2018 foreign carriers accounted for 52.4% of international passenger traffic to and from the U.S. and about 12.1% of total passengers in the U.S. air transportation system. Foreign airlines paid approximately $2.04 Billion of the $15 Billion raised by the AATF. So foreign carriers are contributing 13.6% of the funds for the AATF, but only carrying 12.1% of the passengers taxed by the fund, meaning foreign carriers are getting hit harder by the AATF than U.S. carriers are. Looks like U.S. airlines are getting subsidized by foreign carriers...
Regarding federal taxes, airlines have benefited greatly from the recent federal tax reform. In January 2018 Southwest airlines alone reported a $1.4 Billion benefit from federal tax reform. JetBlue reported $504 million in tax savings in Q4 2017. United's tax bill in Q4 2017 fell 95.9%.
Ah, NY/NJ - a couple of high tax states I was referring to. The tax breaks you mention are merely a small portion of the taxes paid to those states by airlines.
NY even had to offer a $3B tax/grant package to AMZN to entice them to move there. But NY socialists, seeing less money in state coffers, chased away AMZN.
You speak of taxes on international passengers to the US, but fail to mention that foreign countries also have entry/exit taxes/fees on passengers to/from the US, many of which are higher than US fees/taxes (see UK for an example) so that's not a one sided item. Those taxes/fees paid to foreign governments are included in the price of a ticket on an American carrier and are opaque to the customer.
As for federal taxes, I'm glad to see that tax rates have been reduced. The federal government is far too large and needs to be downsized. The US government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
From some of your previous posts, I know you like government handouts but I vehemently oppose them. It produces a slothful society, as can be seen in GDP growth (or lack thereof) as countries move toward/away from mass government handouts.