Hey ho, another aviation tax just doubled. Just rolls off Gordon's tongue.
Interesting that in the detail it states how much extra revenue will be raised from this, just double what the current tax take is from this duty. So they expect nobody to be deterred from flying at all by it, which completely makes their claim about it being a green tax to be seen for what it is. A lie.
The amount of extra tax will, partially, compensate for the VAT being fraudulently claimed by criminals in what is known as "Carousel Fraud", to do with export goods, which has suddenly become an issue this year. It is presumably easier to get the money back from Joe Public than from the perpetrators. By the way, if you want to know how Carousel Fraud is done read Branson's autobiography, he describes how in the early days of Virgin Records they, initially inadvertently, got into this.