EU nations are holding a conference to tax air travel

EUNations
Photo courtesy: brecorder.com

The EU nations will be taking part in a conference today (21st June 2019) in The Hague, a city in The Netherlands to end tax exemption on jet fuel and tickets. The Netherlands and France will be taking the initiative to convince the other members of the EU about the benefits of taxing both Jet fuel and air tickets, this move to end the tax exemption is being seen as part of a drive to ensure fewer carbon emissions in the European continent.

Today’s conference in The Hague will be attended by 29 countries and is the first of its kind on air travel in many years and the crux of the matter for the discussions will be to reduce airline Co2 emissions by restricting air travel in Europe through taxation and limiting the number of flights at the airport.

The introduction of Jet fuel levies, air ticket taxes and value-added tax (VAT) on air travel in the EU will mean that air travel will become more expensive for the travelers and if implemented will result in less number of people using air travel to commute to different places.

According to a European Union Commission report released last month, Japan, America, and Australia charge excise duty on the jet fuel used to power the planes unlike the EU countries although the 2003 EU directive allows countries to agree bilaterally to tax fuel on flights between them.

Swedish Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson told Reuters “It’s really strange: emissions at high altitude are more dangerous than emissions on the ground, but we tax them on the ground but not in the sky.”

When it comes to taxation on flight tickets only six countries of the 28 EU countries are currently levying taxes on the international flight tickets, Great Britain figures out as the country levying the highest tax on air tickets-about 14 Euros on short-haul economy class and 499 Euros on long-haul business class.

Currently, tickets for flights between EU cities are exempt from VAT in all the 28 EU countries and 23 EU countries charge VAT on their domestic flight operations ranging from 3% to 24% depending on the country and the weighted average EU VAT is 4 Euros per ticket, reports reuters.com.

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