2023-05-02 16:34:18
Bad news for the planet. Sales of private jets are expected to reach their highest level this year, according to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies, an American think tank (“laboratory of ideas”) published on Monday, reports The Guardian. The global fleet has more than doubled in 20 years, and the number of private flights flown last year has never been so high. This think tank has identified 5.3 million private flights worldwide in 2022.
Separately, sales of used and new private jets are expected to hit $34.6 billion (€31.6 billion) this year, up from $34.1 billion (€31.1 billion). last year.
In a context of global warming, the use of highly polluting private aviation is increasingly contested: although private jet travel represents only 4% of the global aviation market, it generates approximately 10 times more greenhouse gases per passenger.
The controversy is all the stronger in France as the fuel used to fly private jets is completely tax-free. An important advantage compared to passenger planes, whose kerosene is well taxed. As for road transport, taxes on petroleum products represent more than half the price of gasoline or diesel.
“If we can’t ban private jets, we should at least tax them and make them pay to compensate for their environmental damage,” says Chuck Collins, co-author of the report.
A tax of 5 to 10% on the purchase of a jet?
The Patriotic Millionaires group, an organization of wealthy Americans who demand higher taxes, recommends a 10% tax on all purchases of used private jets, and a 5% tax on new planes, the British newspaper reports. .
If it existed, this tax would have collected 2.6 billion dollars (2.3 billion euros) in American taxes last year, according to the report. Including 4 million dollars paid by Elon Musk (owner of Twitter and founder of Tesla), presented in the study as the most active traveler in 2022.
The group of millionaires also wants to at least double the taxes on fuel for private jets, compared to those for commercial aviation.
According to the Belgian NGO Transport & Environment, taxing private jets could bring in 660 million euros by 2030, revealed Le Monde last September. In France, Transport Minister Clément Beaune was in favor of an increase in taxation. “The subject is not anecdotal at all,” he said.
To “regulate private jet flights”, the minister therefore proposed an increase in the “ecocontribution”, planned for 2024: in the finance law for 2023, a “70% increase in the fuel tax of the ‘private aviation’ was set up.
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