Tag Archives: faa

Business/Economics, U.S.

Government Incompetence: IRS will not collect lost tax revenues caused by FAA shut down, airlines get away with not paying taxes

Recently it was announced that the U.S. Senate made a deal that would put thousands of FAA employees, and contractors, back to work.  This after it was revealed that the government was losing hundreds of million in tax revenues from the FAA shutdown.  Those loses far outweighed the savings from not having to pay the laid off FAA employees.

Now the Internal Revenue Service says they will not attempt to recover those lost airline ticket taxes.  IRS officials say they were ordered by the U.S. Senate not to collect taxes on ticket sales relating to flights made during the FAA shutdown.

Also, people who flew during the FAA shutdown, but bought their airline tickets before the FAA shutdown, will not get the taxes they paid refunded.  Since the airlines are not required to pay the IRS the taxes they collected, on tickets for flights that occurred during the FAA shutdown, essentially the airlines made some free money.

U.S.

Government Incompetence & No Economic Recovery for U.S.: Congress lays off thousands of Air Traffic Controllers

“The FAA employees who will be furloughed perform critical work for our nation’s aviation system and our economy. These are real people with families who do not deserve to be put out of work during these tough economic times.”-Randy Babbitt, FAA Administrator

Because the U.S. Senate failed to approve the House tax plan to fund the Federal Aviation Administration, about 4,000 people will be laid off.  As usual, both republicans and democrats blame each other!

However, the democrat controlled Senate might have a point, because the republican controlled House plan added on pork spending ($16.5 million worth), basically subsidizing commercial airline operations in ten states.