Eliminating UK Airport Tax Would Create 91,000 Jobs, Add £4 Billion to Economy
London's Heathrow Airport, where passengers get gouged to death with taxes when they fly...
91,000 jobs. That’s A LOT of jobs. And that’s exactly what is forecasted would be created in a report by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), a London-based travel consortium, if the UK government were to abolish the ‘air passenger duty’, or air tax on passengers.
The Air Passenger Duty, or APD, ‘…is an excise duty which is charged on the carriage of passengers flying from a United Kingdom airport on an aircraft that has an authorised take off weight of more than ten tonnes or more than twenty seats for passengers.’
So it’s a tax on passengers to travel.
The WTTC states that the tax will collect £2.8 billion in the next 12 months FROM passengers in the UK, more than any other country in the world. The APD was started in 1994 and…
The APD is set to rise again next month.
WTTC President David Scowsill says Britain needs the burden lifted to get their economy rolling:
“When the economy needs help, it is economically illogical to continue with a tax that costs the country some 91,000 jobs and as much as £4.2 billion.”
With the APD tax increase next month, the WTTC says a family of four flying to Spain would pay and extra £52 for their tickets.
All in taxes.
Executives from four British airlines: British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Ryanair and Easyjet said in a joint statement that the tax must be reduced to spur growth:
‘”Latest figures showed that UK passenger numbers in 2011 were at the same level as in 2004. Seven years of rising taxes have brought seven years of no growth. Aviation wants to, and should be, playing a leading role in economic recovery – as it does in so many other countries. But the UK imposes the highest aviation taxes in the world, and keeps on increasing them without any analysis whatever of their overall economic impact.’
The airline group also asks the Chancellor stop the upcoming raise in the APD to ease the tax burden, so at least a study can be carried out:
‘”We call on the Chancellor to suspend the April 1 rises in APD, and those planned up to 2016, while the Treasury commissions an independent study of the economic effects of this job-destroying tax.’
I’m shocked! They want to raise the taxes…again? Reeeaaaaly?? *Sigh* Yet another example of another government taxing industry to death in their mis-guided belief that it will create growth and jobs. Take an economics class fellas. Seriously, are they that stupid? Oh…wait…it’s the government. Nevermind. [end of rant]
Image: Flickr [eguidetravel]
Category: Airnation
