Want a LARS? It'll cost you!
I say there boy
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Read the report here:
http://www.aviation.dtlr.gov.uk/lars/index.htm
To summarise:
The airlines who currently pay for LARS want to reduce their contribution. They think that GA should contribute.
The conclusion seems to be that the fairest way to allow GA to contribute to LARS would be for the Treasury to pay out of AVGAS duty revenues.
Other viable options are:
- An per-GA aircraft annual charge of £189 - 2289 per year, probably collected by increasing the radio license costs (presumably since non-radio a/c can't participate), or
- A £54 per PPL per annum license charge.
The need to expand the service was identified, however it was acknowledged that this would lead to the above charges becoming 'unacceptably large'.
No changes are to take place until the next review in 2004.
Get writing to your MPs now before we have yet more costs heaped upon us.
cheers!
foggy.
http://www.aviation.dtlr.gov.uk/lars/index.htm
To summarise:
The airlines who currently pay for LARS want to reduce their contribution. They think that GA should contribute.
The conclusion seems to be that the fairest way to allow GA to contribute to LARS would be for the Treasury to pay out of AVGAS duty revenues.
Other viable options are:
- An per-GA aircraft annual charge of £189 - 2289 per year, probably collected by increasing the radio license costs (presumably since non-radio a/c can't participate), or
- A £54 per PPL per annum license charge.
The need to expand the service was identified, however it was acknowledged that this would lead to the above charges becoming 'unacceptably large'.
No changes are to take place until the next review in 2004.
Get writing to your MPs now before we have yet more costs heaped upon us.
cheers!
foggy.
Last edited by foghorn; 9th Jun 2002 at 20:01.
I say there boy
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By the way Trinity House is not funded by the Taxpayer - it is funded through light dues levied on ships calling at UK ports.
(culled from their website whilst doing research for an MP letter!)
(culled from their website whilst doing research for an MP letter!)
niknak
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Just a small, but very important point - the vast majority of airline operators don't use LARS because they fly inside controlled airspace, or use London Military until handed off to their desitnation airfield who then provide them with an approach radar service.
So, why should they make any contribution at all?
We don't get paid for a LARS service, ( I understand that the going rate is approximately £50K per year if you do), but we do have 28 airfields of varying sizes in a 30nm radius. Aside from our based and visiting operators, who vary from micro lights to B767s, we get calls from a/c transiting up to 45nm away, requesting a radar service because there's often no one else to talk to.
Like I say, we get diddley squat for doing this, and we provide the best service we can because it's good airmanship for the aircraft to call and we now have a "duty of care", but our own traffic comes first, so if you get short shrift, jsut remember that you're probaly number 23 in the queue!
So, why should they make any contribution at all?
We don't get paid for a LARS service, ( I understand that the going rate is approximately £50K per year if you do), but we do have 28 airfields of varying sizes in a 30nm radius. Aside from our based and visiting operators, who vary from micro lights to B767s, we get calls from a/c transiting up to 45nm away, requesting a radar service because there's often no one else to talk to.
Like I say, we get diddley squat for doing this, and we provide the best service we can because it's good airmanship for the aircraft to call and we now have a "duty of care", but our own traffic comes first, so if you get short shrift, jsut remember that you're probaly number 23 in the queue!
So that's what it's about, the old "airlines feeling hard done by" thing.
At such times it is appropriate to point out to the daft airline beancounters, that...
- We pay punitive tax on fuel, they don't.
- GA is where virtually all of their pilots come from, if they push up the cost of GA their new pilots will arrive even more debt laden, and salaries will be pushed even further up to compensat.e
- The cost of one GA aircraft inadvertently entering Class A and causing an airline accident or diversion will cost more than several years woth of LARS service nationwide.
- The root of the industry that provides many of their skilled technical staff is also GA, see pilots!
Having said all that, lets be fair. Let Instrument fees, passenger taxes, etc. support the airline industry infrastructure. Let local and national taxes on airfields, and Avgas taxes support the GA infrastructure. I'm damned sure that both would win.
Does anybody actually know what the mismatch is between taxation of aviation, and what the government puts back into it?
G
At such times it is appropriate to point out to the daft airline beancounters, that...
- We pay punitive tax on fuel, they don't.
- GA is where virtually all of their pilots come from, if they push up the cost of GA their new pilots will arrive even more debt laden, and salaries will be pushed even further up to compensat.e
- The cost of one GA aircraft inadvertently entering Class A and causing an airline accident or diversion will cost more than several years woth of LARS service nationwide.
- The root of the industry that provides many of their skilled technical staff is also GA, see pilots!
Having said all that, lets be fair. Let Instrument fees, passenger taxes, etc. support the airline industry infrastructure. Let local and national taxes on airfields, and Avgas taxes support the GA infrastructure. I'm damned sure that both would win.
Does anybody actually know what the mismatch is between taxation of aviation, and what the government puts back into it?
G
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If my memory serves me right, duty on Avgas is set under the same hydo-carbons schedule, by Customs & Excise, as Four Star Petrol. Hence the duty is about the same amount per litre.
Well, we all know that successive Governemnets have claimed that duty on petrol has to be kept high, to fund the costs of roads.
So what the hell is the duty on Avgas meant to fund, if it is not something for the benefit if General Aviation ????
Well, we all know that successive Governemnets have claimed that duty on petrol has to be kept high, to fund the costs of roads.
So what the hell is the duty on Avgas meant to fund, if it is not something for the benefit if General Aviation ????
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Those who already pay
A different angle on this "how/why should GA pay" debate is enjoyed by those of us who fly GA types that exceed the 2 tonne Eurocontrol charges cutoff.
We already pay for every IFR flight we conduct, regardless of whether or not that flight enters controlled airspace, or indeed whether it ever talks to anybody at all on the ground. This includes, of course, pretty much every night flight, which in the UK at least, is by definition IFR, unless operating within a control zone.
Having paid for such a service, we are frequently denied it, by controllers who operate a "no ATSOCA" policy for their own reasons. Big offenders in this case include Luton and Thames, although Stansted in the past was equally restrictive. I appreciate that these units are not (no longer in some cases) part of LARS, but the general point remains that a service paid for is being denied, or made unavailable.
The message being sent to us, is that if we fly IFR, we might as well file an airways routing and get the full works, since we'll be charged for it anyway. Which provides additional controller workload, subjects us to slot delays on certain routes and denies us a flexibility in routing that GA enjoys today.
Hope this gives a slightly different perspective on the problem
We already pay for every IFR flight we conduct, regardless of whether or not that flight enters controlled airspace, or indeed whether it ever talks to anybody at all on the ground. This includes, of course, pretty much every night flight, which in the UK at least, is by definition IFR, unless operating within a control zone.
Having paid for such a service, we are frequently denied it, by controllers who operate a "no ATSOCA" policy for their own reasons. Big offenders in this case include Luton and Thames, although Stansted in the past was equally restrictive. I appreciate that these units are not (no longer in some cases) part of LARS, but the general point remains that a service paid for is being denied, or made unavailable.
The message being sent to us, is that if we fly IFR, we might as well file an airways routing and get the full works, since we'll be charged for it anyway. Which provides additional controller workload, subjects us to slot delays on certain routes and denies us a flexibility in routing that GA enjoys today.
Hope this gives a slightly different perspective on the problem
I say there boy
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d_b,
Duty on AVGAS is actually a half of that on unleaded MOGAS - 27.34p per litre on AVGAS as opposed to a whopping 48.82p per litre on ordinary unleaded MOGAS.
Customs and Excise do not publish the revenue from AVGAS on the internet. Several questions are recorded in Hansard regardign this, however the response is always 'that can be found in the Hycrocarbon Oils factsheet in the house library' - they never respond with figures! Embarassed that we will latch on to any published figures?
Back of the fag packet calculation last night:
There are ~9,000 GA aircraft on the UK register.
Assume that all use AVGAS. Then assume that all fly 100 hours a year and burn 30 litres per hour (most likely massive under estimates I know)
Multiply them all up and you get ~£7.5 million per year revenue from AVGAS duty.
LARS in its current state costs £1.6 million per year.
Last night I wrote a letter to my MP regarding this. I'll post it here in case anyone wants to copy chunks to their MP.
cheers!
foggy.
Duty on AVGAS is actually a half of that on unleaded MOGAS - 27.34p per litre on AVGAS as opposed to a whopping 48.82p per litre on ordinary unleaded MOGAS.
Customs and Excise do not publish the revenue from AVGAS on the internet. Several questions are recorded in Hansard regardign this, however the response is always 'that can be found in the Hycrocarbon Oils factsheet in the house library' - they never respond with figures! Embarassed that we will latch on to any published figures?
Back of the fag packet calculation last night:
There are ~9,000 GA aircraft on the UK register.
Assume that all use AVGAS. Then assume that all fly 100 hours a year and burn 30 litres per hour (most likely massive under estimates I know)
Multiply them all up and you get ~£7.5 million per year revenue from AVGAS duty.
LARS in its current state costs £1.6 million per year.
Last night I wrote a letter to my MP regarding this. I'll post it here in case anyone wants to copy chunks to their MP.
cheers!
foggy.
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So LARS costs £1.6m. You would have thought the airlines would be quite happy to pay for this in the interests of safety.
I don't mind paying £60 per year fee IF the government zero duty on AVGAS.......
Bloody rip off yet again.
EA
I don't mind paying £60 per year fee IF the government zero duty on AVGAS.......
Bloody rip off yet again.
EA
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Foghorn
I don't disagree with your basic maths, but there are a couple of factors that you should take into account.
1) AVGAS is history (2005 IIRC) in less time than it will take the legislative process that you are describing to approve any reallocation of AVGAS duty revenue.
2) The Customs and Excise Website publishes extensive information relating to receipts from all forms of Hydrocarbon duty, both current and historic. You do not have to assume a conspiracy. The Hansard extracts you are thinking of are "placed" questions designed to allow the questioner to satisfy constituents and lobbyists, rather than to obtain answers whcih are already in the public domain. Avgas represents a sufficiently tiny take (certainly less than your estimate) that it constitutes only a miscellaneous total in the figures. It is almost certainly less (Net) than your estimate. The not insignificant amount of duty drawn back by pilots will be part of that. I would also hasard the guess that your figure of 9000 GA aircraft do not all do 100 hours a year, or anything like. Whilst club aircraft will be exceeding that amount (with increasing difficulty), the vast majority of aircraft in private ownership will, fall somewhat short of 100 hours.
3) There never has been, nor should there necessarily be a rule in the UK that excise revenue achieved in one area should be spent solely if at all in that area. Duties and Taxes in general are there for lots of reasons including the modifying of consumer behaviour. Something has to pay for those activities such as defence, healthcare, unemployment benefit and spin, which don't in themselves have a revenue side. Writing to your MP suggesting that Aviation taxes should be spent on aviation is barking up the wrong tree IMHO.
Extending Eurocontrol charges to cover a wider variety of flights, or levying annual flat-rate route charges for all aircraft below 2 tonnes is perhaps a more realistic option, and one being actively discussed I believe.
I don't disagree with your basic maths, but there are a couple of factors that you should take into account.
1) AVGAS is history (2005 IIRC) in less time than it will take the legislative process that you are describing to approve any reallocation of AVGAS duty revenue.
2) The Customs and Excise Website publishes extensive information relating to receipts from all forms of Hydrocarbon duty, both current and historic. You do not have to assume a conspiracy. The Hansard extracts you are thinking of are "placed" questions designed to allow the questioner to satisfy constituents and lobbyists, rather than to obtain answers whcih are already in the public domain. Avgas represents a sufficiently tiny take (certainly less than your estimate) that it constitutes only a miscellaneous total in the figures. It is almost certainly less (Net) than your estimate. The not insignificant amount of duty drawn back by pilots will be part of that. I would also hasard the guess that your figure of 9000 GA aircraft do not all do 100 hours a year, or anything like. Whilst club aircraft will be exceeding that amount (with increasing difficulty), the vast majority of aircraft in private ownership will, fall somewhat short of 100 hours.
3) There never has been, nor should there necessarily be a rule in the UK that excise revenue achieved in one area should be spent solely if at all in that area. Duties and Taxes in general are there for lots of reasons including the modifying of consumer behaviour. Something has to pay for those activities such as defence, healthcare, unemployment benefit and spin, which don't in themselves have a revenue side. Writing to your MP suggesting that Aviation taxes should be spent on aviation is barking up the wrong tree IMHO.
Extending Eurocontrol charges to cover a wider variety of flights, or levying annual flat-rate route charges for all aircraft below 2 tonnes is perhaps a more realistic option, and one being actively discussed I believe.
Last edited by 2Donkeys; 10th Jun 2002 at 10:08.
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The danger of anecdote is that it can distort the truth. Anecdotally I have always received a superb sevice from Luton and Thames when transitting from the North to Biggin, whereas I have given up bothering with Essex. (I sometimes wonder if that is why they get so many infringements, because people have given up speaking to them!)
The bottom line here is that many Air traffic units are grossly overstretched and need better resourcing in the interest of safety for all
The bottom line here is that many Air traffic units are grossly overstretched and need better resourcing in the interest of safety for all
I say there boy
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2 donkeys,
Thanks for that. I'm sure that there are many shortcomings in my figures - I was trying to get a handle on orders of magnitude to see if funding £1.6 million pa from AVGAS duty was a sensible proposition.
My tongue was quite a long way inside my cheek with the conspiracy theory. I clearly didn't make that obvious enough in my post! I did in fact find a source of data on the web regarding AVGAS duty, however it was a pay site that cost £90! The Customs and Excise site was not very helpful in this respect as they do not break down the figures as far as AVGAS duty (no doubt because as you say the revenue in absolute terms is small)
I am also fully aware that hypothecation of taxes has few precedents in the UK (the privatisation windfall tax is the only one I can think of), I can think of no precedents of hypothecation in its strictest sense: re-investment to the direct benefit of the activities taxed.
However it is not unreasonable to compare our position to that of the motorist, who for VED and Fuel Duty, which is roughly comparable to our AVGAS duty (OK it's higher but comparable), get highway maintenance, road building, traffic control services (police and traffic lights), and often free on-road parking, paid for by the government.
GA gets very little in return for AVGAS duty since the government expects aviation activities to be on the whole self-funding. But that's not surprising given that we're a small, divided and not very vocal band of people.
Did you read the DTLR report I linked to? The main conclusion for funding was that some AVGAS duty should be hypothecated to pay for GA's share of LARS. However with the all-mighty Treasury having the veto on this, I doubt that it will happen. It will not stop me from doing my bit to raise awareness amongst our legislators, though.
Hence, the tone of my letter is to ask my MP to hold the DTLR and the Treasury to this report's recommendations. Surely not barking up the wrong tree? I'll post it later.
As you say, the end of leaded AVGAS will render this argument invalid. But will it be replaced by an LR AVGAS? What will the duty be on this (given that unleaded and LRP road fuel attracts duty in the 40-50p per litre region)? And if significant numbers of GA aircraft convert to turbo diesel, who's to say that Customs and Excise don't bring in a Red AVTUR for airlines / normal (dutiable) AVTUR for GA type system as with some other fuel users?
cheers!
foggy.
btw. the report considers the extension of Eurocontrol fees and dismisses it as possibly causing a negative effect on overall safety. I understand from the report that Eurocontrol themselves have put on hold indefinitely the introduction of fees to lower tonnage aircraft due to the difficulties in collection.
Thanks for that. I'm sure that there are many shortcomings in my figures - I was trying to get a handle on orders of magnitude to see if funding £1.6 million pa from AVGAS duty was a sensible proposition.
My tongue was quite a long way inside my cheek with the conspiracy theory. I clearly didn't make that obvious enough in my post! I did in fact find a source of data on the web regarding AVGAS duty, however it was a pay site that cost £90! The Customs and Excise site was not very helpful in this respect as they do not break down the figures as far as AVGAS duty (no doubt because as you say the revenue in absolute terms is small)
I am also fully aware that hypothecation of taxes has few precedents in the UK (the privatisation windfall tax is the only one I can think of), I can think of no precedents of hypothecation in its strictest sense: re-investment to the direct benefit of the activities taxed.
However it is not unreasonable to compare our position to that of the motorist, who for VED and Fuel Duty, which is roughly comparable to our AVGAS duty (OK it's higher but comparable), get highway maintenance, road building, traffic control services (police and traffic lights), and often free on-road parking, paid for by the government.
GA gets very little in return for AVGAS duty since the government expects aviation activities to be on the whole self-funding. But that's not surprising given that we're a small, divided and not very vocal band of people.
Did you read the DTLR report I linked to? The main conclusion for funding was that some AVGAS duty should be hypothecated to pay for GA's share of LARS. However with the all-mighty Treasury having the veto on this, I doubt that it will happen. It will not stop me from doing my bit to raise awareness amongst our legislators, though.
Hence, the tone of my letter is to ask my MP to hold the DTLR and the Treasury to this report's recommendations. Surely not barking up the wrong tree? I'll post it later.
As you say, the end of leaded AVGAS will render this argument invalid. But will it be replaced by an LR AVGAS? What will the duty be on this (given that unleaded and LRP road fuel attracts duty in the 40-50p per litre region)? And if significant numbers of GA aircraft convert to turbo diesel, who's to say that Customs and Excise don't bring in a Red AVTUR for airlines / normal (dutiable) AVTUR for GA type system as with some other fuel users?
cheers!
foggy.
btw. the report considers the extension of Eurocontrol fees and dismisses it as possibly causing a negative effect on overall safety. I understand from the report that Eurocontrol themselves have put on hold indefinitely the introduction of fees to lower tonnage aircraft due to the difficulties in collection.
Last edited by foghorn; 10th Jun 2002 at 13:43.
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I still don't see why boat owners can get Red Diesel at 20p a litre, whether they are a commercial venture or out for a jolly, yet us lot are stung with taxes on AVGAS. I think there is a bit of the 'you fly therefore you must be rich' attitude towards GA.
EA
EA
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I quote below from the June/July 2002 edition of 'Network,' the journal of PPL/IR Europe, (with due acknowledgement of source):
Intelligence Reports
"Evaporated Revenue
One reader was informed that the UK government obtained £12 million of revenue during 2001 from excise taxes on 100LL...."
Sorry, there is no indication of the source of the reader's information, but I will ask.
Regards
Intelligence Reports
"Evaporated Revenue
One reader was informed that the UK government obtained £12 million of revenue during 2001 from excise taxes on 100LL...."
Sorry, there is no indication of the source of the reader's information, but I will ask.
Regards
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One reader was informed that the UK government obtained £12 million of revenue during 2001 from excise taxes on 100LL...."
Sorry, there is no indication of the source of the reader's information, but I will ask
Lords Written Answers, 1 Feb 2001
There is evasive government for you. Why not say "£xx million, and the figures are in the document". Why cannot the current Government just answer a straight question??????
And of course, I cannot find the cited document on the Internet.
Sorry, there is no indication of the source of the reader's information, but I will ask
Lords Written Answers, 1 Feb 2001
Lord Trefgarne asked Her Majesty's Government:
:What is the annual net revenue accruing to the Treasury in respect of the duty payable on aviation gasoline (AVGAS). [HL463]"
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: "The amount of excise duty received from AVGAS aviation can be found in the HM Customs & Excise Hydrocarbon Oils Factsheet, a copy of which is held in the Library. "
:What is the annual net revenue accruing to the Treasury in respect of the duty payable on aviation gasoline (AVGAS). [HL463]"
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: "The amount of excise duty received from AVGAS aviation can be found in the HM Customs & Excise Hydrocarbon Oils Factsheet, a copy of which is held in the Library. "
And of course, I cannot find the cited document on the Internet.
