The White House’s new focus on corporate aviation is drawing backlash from an industry that says it supports manufacturing.

The Biden administration is looking to the skies for government revenue, scrutinizing corporate jets as it tries to get big companies to pay more in taxes and to crack down on rich tax evaders.

From Taylor Swift to Fortune 500 chief executives, private air travel has for years been portrayed to exemplify lavishness and excess, putting it on the radar of Democrats who want to rid the tax code of incentives that promote its use.

Companies have long benefited from laws that allow them to write off the cost of jets more quickly than commercial airlines can, and to pay less in fuel taxes. Included in the $5 trillion of tax increases proposed by the White House were plans to target corporate aviation and ramp up scrutiny of executives who use company planes for private trips.

President Biden raised the taxation of corporate jets at his State of the Union address this month and at a campaign event in Philadelphia last week as he laid out his ideas to make big companies “pay their fair share.”

At a Senate hearing on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen praised the Internal Revenue Service for embarking on a “new initiative to end abuse of corporate jet write-offs.”

The ideas have drawn swift backlash from the corporate aviation industry, which argues that the proposals unfairly undercut American companies that rely on private planes to allow their executives to more easily visit factories and remote offices.

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    • @foggy@lemmy.world
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      133 months ago

      IDK why you got downvoted.

      We should have hybridized planes forever ago.

      Electric motors are more capable than combustion engines for the purpose of rapid acceleration for takeoff. Maybe a battery weight limitation? Idk.

      • @Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
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        73 months ago

        Maybe a battery weight limitation?

        I’m no aviation engineer, but as far as I understand it that’s exactly it. The more weight, the more thrust you need, which means your fuel (or in this case, stored energy) needs to be very efficient in thrust per kg.

        • @foggy@lemmy.world
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          23 months ago

          Yeah but electric motors are WAY more capable of thrust than combustion.

          Things can go from 0 to black hole maker in an instant. We all know what jet engines sound like firing up, and it isn’t explosive.

          I’m also no engineer though. Well, not that kind anyways.

          • @Patches@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            Batteries are way heavier than gasoline. It’s not even close in comparison.

            Stored energy in fuel is considerable: gasoline is the champion at 47.5 MJ/kg and 34.6 MJ/liter; the gasoline in a fully fueled car has the same energy content as a thousand sticks of dynamite. A lithium-ion battery pack has about 0.3 MJ/kg and about 0.4 MJ/liter (Chevy VOLT).

            https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201208/backpage.cfm

    • @Patches@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      So uh going home for Christmas is banned but uh Flying 45 people to have a meeting that could’ve been an email is “OK”?

      Or is recreational flight flying for fun - like the Blue Angels?