UK- 1% of residents take almost 20% of flights

Considering Tourism may be the last "export" that they have any control over, I think a Levy might be taking a lumphammer to the bleeding scrotal remains from the shotgun blast they've already given themselves in the nads.

AngryHippie wrote: »

Considering Tourism may be the last "export" that they have any control over, I think a Levy might be taking a lumphammer to the bleeding scrotal remains from the shotgun blast they've already given themselves in the nads.

The suggested levy is on UK residents. Tourists flying to the UK wouldn't be affected (unless their countries imposed a similar levy, of course).

NIMAN wrote: »

This stat shows why some people deserve to get hit with extra taxes, but not the person who takes one flight every yer or two.

But for some reason society doesn't address the obvious, they just hit everyone.

The suggestion is a levy on people who take two or more flights a year. That means the majority of people would pay nothing at all. This is pretty much the opposite of "hitting everyone".

NIMAN wrote: »

Like the drinking laws, maybe 1% cause all the major issues, but the rest of us are penalised or told when we can and can't drink cos of them.

Wait, what?

magicbastarder wrote: »

It seems to be standard practice that when calculating carbon footprint, flights for personal reasons are allocated to the person, and flights for business count towards the carbon footprint of the business.

For the purposes of imposing a levy, you don't need to distinguish. Assuming the levy is collected through the ticket price, and assuming business flights are paid for by the business, the levy on business flights will be paid by the business, and the levy on personal flights will be paid by the individual.

SFAIK the "one levy-free flight" right is not transferable. If an individual doesn't fly at all during the year, they can't assign the benefit of the right to someone else.

The only circumstance in which the right is likely to be applied to a business flight is where a person making business flights does not make any non-business flights at all during the year, in which case they could make one business flight without paying the levy in that year. And, I agree, that combination of circumstances is not likely to arise very frequently.

magicbastarder wrote: »

btw, is the suggestion for a levy on one flight, or one return flight?

I imagine one return flight.

But little turns on it. Since almost every outward flight generates a return flight - esp for people who are taking more than one flight per year - a levy of X per flight or 2X per return flight comes to the same thing.

AngryHippie wrote: »

You underestimate how good their people are at turning that into a tax offset or deduction.

If the very wealthy are not already claiming their jet-setting costs as a tax offset or deduction, it's unlikely that the introduction of a new levy would encourage or enable them to do so. Note that there are plenty of examples of levies on flights already - e.g. the UK's Air Passenger Duty, Australia's Passenger Movement Charge - so there is plenty of real-world data on how people respond to the introduction of such levies.

I'm not suggesting the PMC was introduced for environmental reasons; just that it and similar schemes give us data about how travellers respond to the introduction of ticket levies, which enables us to make better-informed judgments about whether ticket levies can or cannot be used effectively to acheive environmentally beneficial outcomes. (The data, when analysed, may well suggest that they cannot, but we won't know that until we have analysed it.)

The object of an environmental levy, presumably, would be to actually reduce the number of flights made, which means it has to be painful to pay, so that people are incentivised to choose alternatives to flying.

Even if people can claim the amount of the levy as a tax deduction, this doesn't mean that it won't be painful. The corporation tax rate in the UK is 19%, so even claiming the deduction a UK business will still bear 81% of the cost of the levy, which adds to their cost of doing business. Oversimplifying a bit, they must deal with this either by accepting lower profits or by passing the extra cost on to their customers in the form of price increases. But raising their prices reduces sales, and therefore profits, and puts them at competitive disadvantage with a rival business that is more flexible and responds by reorganising itself so as to reduce business travel requirements.

In other words, the levy provides a financial incentive to arrange matters so that the need for business travel is reduced. And if that is the outcome, the levy succeeds in its object. The big question is, will that be the outcome?

It's true that the levy has an economic cost, both for business that do not or cannot avoid it and for those who have to change their operations (in a way they wouldn't otherwise choose to do) to avoid it. But of course not taking effective steps to tackle climate damage also has an economic cost.

Peregrinus wrote: »

To the person - business don't fly. And the environmental consequences of a person taking a flight don't depend on the person's reason for taking the flight.

Lots of people who are a long way from the 1% need to fly a few times a year for pretty non-glamourous work reasons. Especially in Ireland where a huge amount of industry relies on exports, foreign multinationals etc. We are a small, island, economy and that needs to be reflected in a changes to tax law. We cant just get a train to Europe.