EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax

The key word here is probably &quot;draft&quot;. Bill proposals usually don&#x27;t amount to much, and for that reason it&#x27;s generally good practice to wait for a state change (no pun intended).<p><i>Proposed bills usually go nowhere</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=all&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=true&amp;query=by%3Adang%20bills%20propos&amp;sort=byDate&amp;type=comment" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=all&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=true&amp;que...</a><p><i>On HN, there&#x27;s no harm in waiting</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=all&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=false&amp;sort=byDate&amp;type=comment&amp;query=%22no%20harm%20in%20waiting%22%20by:dang" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=all&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=false&amp;so...</a>

&gt; Private jets will enjoy an exemption through classification of &quot;business aviation&quot; as the use of aircraft by firms for carriage of passengers or goods as an &quot;aid to the conduct of their business&quot;, if generally considered not for public hire.<p>&gt; A further exemption is given for &quot;pleasure&quot; flights whereby an aircraft is used for &quot;personal or recreational&quot; purposes not associated with a business or professional use.<p>Surely they can afford it more than everyone else flying?

To me, this just drives home the point that it is more about control than about anything scientific. The wealthy class want their perks and privileges while corraling the plebeians so that we won&#x27;t use &quot;their precious resources&quot; or ruining their enjoyments.

Blog spam (edit: link now changed to something less clickbaity). The original source, anyway:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;business&#x2F;sustainable-business&#x2F;draft-shows-eu-propose-aviation-fuel-tax-green-policy-push-2021-07-04&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;business&#x2F;sustainable-business&#x2F;draft-...</a><p><i>The European Commission has drafted plans to set an EU-wide minimum tax rate for polluting aviation fuels, as it seeks to meet more ambitious targets to fight climate change, a document seen by Reuters shows.</i><p><i>...</i><p><i>Introducing the proposals could be politically difficult. Changes to EU tax rates require unanimous approval from the 27 EU countries, meaning a single state could veto them.</i><p><i>...</i><p><i>From 2023, the minimum tax rate for aviation fuel would start at zero and increase gradually over a 10-year period, until the full rate is imposed. The draft proposal did not specify what the final rate would be.</i><p><i>...</i><p><i>The minimum EU tax rate would not apply to cargo-only flights or to &quot;pleasure flights&quot; and &quot;business aviation&quot;. That could include recreational use of an aircraft or a company using a plane, not for public hire, to conduct its business. Member states could choose to tax those flights&#x27; fuel on a national basis.</i><p><i>The draft proposal would also introduce minimum tax rates on polluting fuels used for waterborne navigation, fishing and freight transport within the EU.</i>

This seems to be the upstream source article: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.argusmedia.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;news&#x2F;2231434-eu-draft-exempts-private-jets-cargo-from-jet-fuel-tax" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.argusmedia.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;news&#x2F;2231434-eu-draft-exempts-...</a>

A relevant video examining the potential alternatives to jet fuel: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=C_BK7PRugK4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=C_BK7PRugK4</a><p>A TL;DW is that biofuels are unscalable and worse for the environment than standard fuels. Hydrogen is not yet viable, and would require entirely new aircraft designs. Electricity will likely never be viable for all but the smallest low-range aircraft. E-fuels (fuel made using carbon capture) is not yet viable, but may be a viable long term option.

I love it. They don&#x27;t even care now, do they? Private jets are the most obvious targets of carbon tax because they are completely unnecessary, and the politicians decided to carve out the tax only for them. The world we live in is truly wonderful.

Yeah, tell people to eat bugs and less meat but step out of the way of fast food industry, or those farms treating cows like bags of potato. Tell people to fly less or use the train and exempt private jets.<p>But honestly, we deserve worse, it&#x27;s our fault. We let those fucks FLY ON PRIVATE JETS to davos CLIMATE summit, and accept an increased tax on plastic bags (which incidentally was show to make people use more plastic). Anyway, yeah we deserve worse. It&#x27;s not their fault. It&#x27;s ours. We are the ones letting them tell us what to do while they fuck around on private jets.

This is ridiculous. So you have to pay the carbon tax unless you emit 200x the amount. But yeah, we are all in the same boat

Every time shit like this happens, it destroys faith of ordinary citizens in the system. The more likely they are to conclide that this is a mugs game and less likely to follow the law when noone is watching

I think its pretty nice that they care enough about normal &#x2F; poor people to be willing to try and prevent global warming as long as those same normal &#x2F; poor people pay for it and the rich are not inconvenienced.

I&#x27;d be very reticent to take the source that OP has given. If it appears elsewhere, fine, but Guido and chums are not credible, especially on matters pertaining to the EU. They are ideological and partisan.<p>The only other outlets carrying this story are of suspect origins, too:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;duckduckgo.com&#x2F;?t=ffab&amp;q=eu+carbon+tax+private+jets&amp;ia=web" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;duckduckgo.com&#x2F;?t=ffab&amp;q=eu+carbon+tax+private+jets&amp;...</a><p>See: RT.<p>There is one more credible looking source though, which is this one:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.argusmedia.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;news&#x2F;2231434-eu-draft-exempts-private-jets-cargo-from-jet-fuel-tax" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.argusmedia.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;news&#x2F;2231434-eu-draft-exempts-...</a><p>The key wording:<p>&gt; The European Commission has proposed exempting private jets and cargo flights from the planned EU jet fuel tax.<p>It has <i>proposed</i> this. Which is to say that it can be amended with input from back channels from both Europarl _and_ the national governments. I would be surprised if this headline grabbing omission wasn&#x27;t kiboshed totally.<p>As usual, Guido will take the opportunity to bash Europe without fairly portraying how it works. This is basic journalistic failure equivalent to slamming Westminster because of the publication of a green paper.<p>EDIT: Original link was to an awful source, the lovely moderators have changed it.

Exempting private jets seems dumb, but I guess it&#x27;s important we don&#x27;t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Taxing regular commercial passenger flights will have most of the impact, and should encourage more efficient planes, bootstrap the market for sustainable synthetic fuels or electric short-range aircraft, and encourage more travel by train for shorter journeys. If exempting business jets is what&#x27;s required to make it politically acceptable to all 27 member states so it actually goes into force, so be it. Much better this than another decade of debate and no action. The loose ends can always be cleaned up later.

The EU has been completely bonkers for the last few years. Just staggeringly stupid policy I mean look at them literally banning encryption and then this I&#x27;m confused but the ppl running the eu are more confused

Just goes to show fighting climate change is nothing but a power grab that makes life more miserable for regular people and making them more dependent on the rich and government.

I&#x27;m pretty disenchanted with government due to it being hijacked by those with 1%er money.<p>Anyway, couldn&#x27;t the aristocrats (10%ers) writing this do a better job with trade-offs? Like exempt it, but force them to buy carbon credits at a set discounted price?<p>Pretty sure the 1% knows they can&#x27;t get away with this without a compromise.

I can see a reason to exempt flights that are flying abroad.<p>For example, an EU airport could charge max(min(10%, tax rate of country you came from last), tax rate of country you&#x27;re flying to next).<p>Thats to prevent an aircraft just filling up where it&#x27;s cheap and carrying that fuel around the world unnecessarily.<p>The EU should then lobby other countries to introduce fuel taxes, and if they refuse, set fees for aircraft coming from those countries into the EU which is approximately equal to the taxes due on the fuel for those flights.

Nothing less would be expected from the European Commission. Not once have they declined to brown nose big business. Then they have the gal to accuse others of being corrupt.

Wow that defeats any reasonable point this could have had except to benefit larger corporations. The EU might be better off without the law entirely.

So, like TAX off-shoring, some airlines will just fill up outside this remit of tax, so your flight from EU to Australia as an example - may have enough fuel to hit the next refuel outside the EU and then carry on, saving lots of money for the airline in what will be a completely legal avoidance move.<p>Turkey will love this - as they are not an EU member and have just built the biggest airport in the World.

I&#x27;ve lost any and all faith I had in the EU after how it handled coronavirus. Nothing will surprise me now.

Come on EU, can&#x27;t you do proper accounting?<p>Tax the fuel, and give certain groups a subsidy when you think it is necessary. That way, accounting is fully transparent, and we don&#x27;t end up in weird discussions about why some groups of people pay tax and others don&#x27;t.

We need carbon tax asap everywhere where it&#x27;s possible otherwise the humanity is doomed.

I struggle to find one (1) reason for this exemption but political leverage. Embarassing.

Historically, EU aviation fuel was tax free and applied no VAT. Many US states don&#x27;t tax jet fuel.<p>Air traffic causes 2.5% of all CO2 emissions globally. In rich countries about 3%.

Come now, people. How else will these poor oligarchs afford to fly to davos if they have to abide by the same rules they want to push on the plebs?

I very much doubt that that kind of exemption will survive into the actual law.<p>(If it even exists now, I haven&#x27;t seen the actual draft)

I am wondering how these exemptions can be used as a loophole. Private drivers were one, why not private jets now ?

Quoting from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.argusmedia.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;news&#x2F;2231434-eu-draft-exempts-private-jets-cargo-from-jet-fuel-tax" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.argusmedia.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;news&#x2F;2231434-eu-draft-exempts-...</a> (thanks jey)<p>&gt; The commission is worried that taxing fuel for cargo-only flights would adversely affect EU carriers.<p>Adversely affecting the aviation industry is kind of the whole point you gits.

Brussels eurocrats might enjoy comfy flights.

Ohhh I thought it was the other way around..

It&#x27;s called TPT aka The Pleb Tax.

ok course, who would fund their ad campaigns on pushing carbon tax?

<p><pre><code> Now, the wall simply reads, “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL &#x2F; BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.”</code></pre>

Can&#x27;t even read the article without JS enabled.

This probably why they goto Davos

So... Socialists taxing the rich... Right? Right?

Somebody thinks of Davos

What a crock of shit

I’m okay with the events that are unfolding currently.

Bear in mind the author of this piece [0] is a crazy brexiteer somewhere on the far far right...<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Paul_Staines" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Paul_Staines</a>

I agree with the exemption for Cargo. Some things do depend on quick transportation and plane is the way to go.<p>Now, for Private Jets? Yeah that&#x27;s ridiculous.

Ultra-rich don&#x27;t have to pay any taxes, perfectly legally, according to recent ProPublica files: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;the-secret-irs-files-trov...</a><p>So why would they pay jet fuel tax, too? This has nothing to do with global warming, it&#x27;s all about tax avoidance, it fits the pattern.

Special interests rule the world, except where a recent revolution happened. Special interests by definition have a stronger desire than the general population for certain policies, and thus get them installed even when it harms most citizens. Thomas Jefferson said that a nation needs a revolution once a generation to keep it&#x27;s freedom. Either that or there needs to be a constitutional clause that automatically sunsets all government legislation and agencies every seven or ten years.