Aviation taxation and subsidies

Aviation taxation and subsidies includes taxes and subsidies related to aviation. Taxation is one of several methods to mitigate the environmental impact of aviation. Airport improvement fee, paid by passengers to the airport or government Air passenger taxes, paid by passengers to the government for environmental reasons; may be variable by distance and includes domestic flights Departure tax, paid by passengers leaving the country to the government (sometimes also applies outside of aviation) Jet fuel tax, paid by airline companies to the government for the jet fuel (kerosene) they burn Landing fee, paid by airline companies to the airports they land on Solidarity tax on airplane tickets (Chirac Tax), paid by passengers to Unitaid, a global health initiative against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis According to the Amsterdam-based international environmental organisation Friends of the Earth (2005), aviation does not pay tax on fuel and aviation's expansion is fuelled by its exemption from taxes. In the UK, aviation got £9 billion tax free benefits in 2003. Friends of the Earth argued that fuel tax would give incentive to improve the energy efficiency of operations, and would be a more effective response than emission trading. Historically, EU aviation fuel was tax free and attracted no VAT. Commercial aviation fuel taxation in the EU was banned in 2003 by the Energy Taxation Directive (2003/96/EC), except with bilateral agreements between member states. However, as of 2018, no such agreements exist. 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. Citing the fact that aviation causes around 2.