EU aviation fuel taxation
[9]: 6–7 Although the ICAO has produced various policy documents suggesting that no taxes of any kind should be placed on aviation fuel, none of these are legally binding, and they are not found in the Chicago Convention itself.
For this reason, the governmental organisation classifies the missing kerosene tax as environmentally harmful subsidy, which in 2012 amounted to 7.083 billion euros in Germany.
[12] The Verkehrsclub Deutschland [de] (Traffic Club Germany) also considers the lack of an aviation fuel tax as an effective subsidy.
[13] This view is shared by Greenpeace, who state that air traffic in Switzerland (not a member of the European Union) is subsidised relative to other forms of transport with CHF 1.7 billion annually because airlines do not pay fuel taxes.
[18] In a September–October 2019 poll conducted by the European Investment Bank (EIB) amongst 28,088 EU citizens from the then 28 member states, 72% said they would support a carbon tax on flights.
[22] In November 2019, the Finance Ministers of Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden presented a joint statement calling on the European Commission, more specifically European Commissioner for Climate Action Frans Timmermans, to introduce EU-wide taxes on aviation so as to charge the entire aviation industry more for its emissions and pollution, and put all member states on level pegging.
After an increase of around 12% compared to the previous year, a good 1 billion litres = 1 million cubic metres of kerosene were refueled in Austria in 2018[24] – mostly for international flights.
[29] De Boer rejected the aviation industry's argument that airlines might try to refuel their aircraft outside the EU if an EU-wide kerosene tax was levied.
[30] The formation of a left-wing government in Germany in November 1998 made Finance Secretary Willem Vermeend optimistic about ending the kerosene tax exemption within the EU.
But Natuur & Milieu was worried international treaties on aviation would preclude such taxation of kerosene, proposing to tax the emission of polluting gases instead; it calculated that levying 0.5 ECUs (1.1 guiders) per litre would make tickets about 15–20% more expensive.
The Transport Ministry had calculated in 1995 that 12% VAT plus a 0.5 ECU excise would decrease the amount of flight kilometres travelled by 12%, leading especially tourists to forego flying and take the train instead.
[5] In anticipation to its introduction, the Second Balkenende cabinet in September 2004 proposed to levy higher excise duties on kerosene for domestic flights; this was estimated to bring in an extra 14 million euros in revenue.
[33] On 20 December 2007, an open letter in Trouw written by MPs and backed by a parliamentary majority called on Finance Minister Wouter Bos and Finance Secretary Jan Kees de Jager to convince other European governments to also introduce more aviation taxes such as excises on kerosene to mitigate aviation's environmental impact; by that time, the Netherlands already had a domestic kerosene excise and planned to introduce a ticket tax on passengers on 1 July 2008.
[6] In March 2019, Finance Secretary Menno Snel stated that commercial domestic excises (which were levied from 2005 to 2011) were abolished in 2012 'because of complications in implementation and a low revenue yield'.
