United States | News & Politics

Number of times "manufacturing" appears: One - in the (sub)head.

From Taylor Swift to Fortune 500 chief executives, private air travel has for years been portrayed to exemplify lavishness and excess, putting it on the radar of Democrats who want to rid the tax code of incentives that promote its use.

Companies have long benefited from laws that allow them to write off the cost of jets more quickly than commercial airlines can, and to pay less in fuel taxes. Included in the $5 trillion of tax increases proposed by the White House were plans to target corporate aviation and ramp up scrutiny of executives who use company planes for private trips.

President Biden raised the taxation of corporate jets at his State of the Union address this month and at a campaign event in Philadelphia last week as he laid out his ideas to make big companies “pay their fair share.”

Emphasis mine. And in THIS CORNER!

“We haven’t seen any real justification on why an important and essential American industry is being targeted for tax increases,” said Ed Bolen, president and chief executive of the National Business Aviation Association. “Proposals have been made, impressions may have been left and we would like to understand the facts behind it.”

Ryan DeMoor, head of aviation tax at MySky, said he didn’t expect the I.R.S. audits to bring in as much missing tax revenue as the agency anticipated. He said many executives were required to fly on corporate airplanes, even for personal travel, and argued that finance departments tended to be overly cautious about how they reported aviation taxes because of the risk and cost of getting them wrong.

“They’re falling into the fat-cat executive trope out there, which is just not the case,” said Mr. DeMoor, whose business helps companies manage their flight expenses. “Why would a Fortune 500 company put themselves at risk by trying to save a tiny bit of tax money on their flight department?”

I don't pretend to know why "...many executives were required to fly on corporate airplanes, even for personal travel", but if they think my first thought isn't protecting their investment in the C-suite for insurance reasons or some shit then they are wrong. And to answer “Why would a Fortune 500 company put themselves at risk by trying to save a tiny bit of tax money on their flight department?” - well, if you think the struggling taxpayer watching his groceries go down in volume and up in price is going to answer that with anything but "to save even a tiny bit of fucking money to keep for yourselves" then that's wrong too.