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Tax break for PA's private jets? Subsidy proposed for mega-high end travel
A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania legislators wants to give the owners of private and corporate jets a $10-14 million subsidy, according to a new report by the left-leaning Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center.
Tax break for PA's private jets? Subsidy proposed for mega-high end travel
A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania legislators wants to give the owners of private and corporate jets a $10 million to $14 million subsidy, according to a new report by the left-leaning Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC). House Bill 100, according to the report that you can read right here, would exempt the sale of private aircraft from the state sales and use tax.
“If you buy a car, a truck, a boat or any other vehicle in Pennsylvania, you pay sales tax,” according to PBPC. “But if you are one of the few in the market for a Learjet or a Gulfstream aircraft, you would get a pass on paying that.”
The aviation industry is, says PBPC, out to commit economic robbery: pushing states to compete against one another, they hope that Pennsylvania will be freaked out enough by Connecticut, Maine and New York's recent exemptions that we'll hand over our cash. PBPC, however, says that these tax breaks have no record of job creation but cost taxpayers in all the states affected.
“At a time of deep cuts to education and other vital services, the Legislature should not be handing out a luxury tax break to wealthy jet owners,” said PBPC Director Sharon Ward. “Few middle-class families or small businesses will benefit from it, but it will drain funding from investments that help create jobs, including transportation and good public schools.”
Plus, they say, tax loopholes are not shown to have a major impact on corporate relocation decisions, decisions that spell doom for American workers as companies relocate to China and Mexico.
Private jets are—as when John McCain wasn't able to remember how many houses he owned, or when Mitt Romney offered Rick Perry a $10,000 bet—increasingly a symbol of the decadence and outsize political power of America's super-wealthy. This summer, President Obama attempted to make tax breaks for corporate jets at the national level a symbol of the Republican Party's out-of-touch bought-by-big money politics. The Republicans might be worse, but I'm not sure that lobbyists—let alone the American people—can tell the difference between these two parties.
Airplanes are different from cars, boats, and trailers. Those personal items are normally found in your driveway. Jets & planes can be parked in one state, and then be flown to Pennsylvania to pick up its passengers. Pennsylvania aircraft owners can avoid the sales tax simply by storing their planes in a state that does not charge the sales tax.
The “no-tax” states get to have their people do all of the repairs and maintenance, which means jobs that could be given to PA residents, move across the state line. The choice is clear… keep the tax, and keep watching as the families of the aircraft technicians move out of town. If you want to attract good-paying jobs, then make the tax situation attractive.
Would you rather have 100% of nothing, or 10% of something?
— N14890- Your editorial is well-intended, but misguided. As the CEO of a small air taxi operator from New York, that does a fair amount of business in Pa, I can tell you that this tax break helps far more workers and small businesses than it does "rich people."
This is a pro-aviation tax policy where we can connect the dots from the policy to job creation.
We were able to lease additional aircraft this year from owners who purchased the planes and put them in New York, in part, due to this tax break. With more planes, we hired more pilots (not considered part of the 1%), hired more mechanics because we had more planes (again, not part of the 1%), and spent more money on marketing and advertising-- helping regular, working sales folks.
Go to your local airport and you'll see its dominated by small businesses.
The super wealthy will continue to buy airplanes. Wouldn't you rather have those airplanes in your state-- generating jobs?
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