Executive jets will escape plans to tax polluting aviation fuels, according to draft proposals to be presented by the European Commission on Wednesday.
The commission plans to set an EU-wide minimum tax rate for aviation fuels, as it seeks to meet more ambitious targets to fight climate change.
A draft of the commission’s tax proposal takes aim at aviation, which escapes EU fuel taxes.
That exemption “is not coherent with the present climate challenges and policies,” the document said, adding that EU tax rules promote fossil fuels over green energy sources and need rewriting to support the bloc’s climate goals.
The proposal would impose an EU-wide minimum level of tax on energy products supplied as aircraft fuel for flights within the EU.
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.
Executive jets
However, the minimum EU tax rate would not apply to cargo-only flights or to “pleasure flights” and “business aviation” – a term that covers executive jets.
For the first six months of 2021 global business aviation activity fell only 4 per cent short of the first half of 2019, and was 42 per cent up on the first half of 2020. By comparison, scheduled airline activity was still 45 per cent behind 2019 levels over the same period, WingX said.