<story><title>France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-airlines-tax-idUSKCN1U412B</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gns24</author><text>The UK already taxes flights in a similar way.
Whilst this does feel like progress, it would be much better to tax the fuel instead of the passengers. Virtually all other fuel is taxed, so it&amp;#x27;s strange that jet fuel is exempt. 
The problem with taxing passengers instead of fuel include:&lt;p&gt;- it doesn&amp;#x27;t encourage improving the efficiency of planes&lt;p&gt;- airlines can&amp;#x27;t fill their planes with really cheap seats, and empty seats seem like a ridiculous waste&lt;p&gt;- freight isn&amp;#x27;t taxed&lt;p&gt;If you tax fuel too much there&amp;#x27;s a risk that planes will fly in with enough fuel to fly out again, but that could be fixed by legislation or (better) by a standardised fuel tax across a large area.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rlpb</author><text>&amp;gt; Virtually all other fuel is taxed, so it&amp;#x27;s strange that jet fuel is exempt.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Without any international agreement on taxing fuel, it is highly likely that moves to impose
duty on international flights, either at a domestic or European level, would encourage
‘tankering’: carriers filling their aircraft as full as possible whenever they landed outside the
EU to avoid paying tax. Clearly this would be entirely counterproductive. Aircraft would be
travelling further than necessary to fill up in low-tax jurisdictions; in addition they would be
burning up more fuel when carrying the extra weight of a full fuel tank.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This document explains it pretty well: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.parliament.uk&amp;#x2F;briefing-papers&amp;#x2F;SN00523.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.parliament.uk&amp;#x2F;briefing-papers&amp;#x2F;SN00523.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-airlines-tax-idUSKCN1U412B</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gns24</author><text>The UK already taxes flights in a similar way.
Whilst this does feel like progress, it would be much better to tax the fuel instead of the passengers. Virtually all other fuel is taxed, so it&amp;#x27;s strange that jet fuel is exempt. 
The problem with taxing passengers instead of fuel include:&lt;p&gt;- it doesn&amp;#x27;t encourage improving the efficiency of planes&lt;p&gt;- airlines can&amp;#x27;t fill their planes with really cheap seats, and empty seats seem like a ridiculous waste&lt;p&gt;- freight isn&amp;#x27;t taxed&lt;p&gt;If you tax fuel too much there&amp;#x27;s a risk that planes will fly in with enough fuel to fly out again, but that could be fixed by legislation or (better) by a standardised fuel tax across a large area.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>selectodude</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s illegal to tax fuel for international flights. Domestic fuel is already taxed but the Chicago Convention in 1944 set the ground rules for the ICAO and international air travel.</text></comment>