I hear this banded about as a way to curve people flying but the implementation would have to be careful. How would this work in regards to personal Vs work flights?

Would work flights count towards your allowable mileage?

So someone who travels on two or three personal trip abroad a year may miss frequent flyer tax or just be hit on one flight but someone who travels a lot for work but then takes one or may be less than one personal trip per year (average) could be hit hard as they are deemed frequent flyer.

Purely on the work side would companies just end up employing someone to travel who was based outside the UK to do jobs which require frequent flying? Thus just moving the person doing the job or maybe taking the job away and moving it outside the UK?

Seems like one of these ideas where the implementation would be hard to get right.

If its a deterrent, just put (a lot) more tax on every flight rather than some arbitrary threshold. Job jobbed.

Doesn’t matter whether it is work or pleasure – the person is flying a lot and therefore need to pay the cost or maybe take less flights if they don’t like the cost.

I would put a limit on number rather than tax. 1 return flight per year per person.

It’s called Air Passenger Duty. Fly frequently? You’ll already be paying a lot of it.

Worth a look…

Why isn’t there tax on aviation (or shipping) fuel?

Yay another badly thought out overly complicated tax when one already exists to make people feel better. As above tax all flights at source. Like fuel duty which covers all bases, drive lots of miles, get taxed more, drive a less efficient car, get taxed more, drive like a dick, get taxed more, drive on congested roads at busy times get taxed more. None of the complexities, costs or administration of congestion charges. Trouble is the taxes aren’t high enough to have any effect, if they were there would be mass protests.

CaptainFlashheart

Member
It’s called Air Passenger Duty. Fly frequently? You’ll already be paying a lot of it.

Only if you’re flying long haul and not in economy class, CaptBusinessClass.

I support this tax 🙂

As for implementation – scanning of passports / boarding passes required at every airport, links back to a central db somewhere of all the miles being booked to that passport which should easily be linked to an individual as passports are unique

charges applied as part of self assessment, on a tiered sliding scale of getting more expensive per mile after certain values exceeded. job jobbed. should be straight forward to implement.

It’ll cost the government millions, take a decade and get canned before getting anywhere close to implementation

Re business miles – business could reimburse you for the frequent flyer ‘tax’ however the extra costs will mount up and may change views on whether they need to send their employees all round the world or whether a similar outcome could be achieved via other means.

Nope.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Passenger_Duty#Rates

How would this work in regards to personal Vs work flights?

What’s the difference? is one less polluting than the other?

Air Passenger Duty is only £13 per flight. Increase it to £200 per flight if you want to make a real difference. A lot simpler than counting how many flights each person has taken.
Half the population take zero flights per year.

Increase it to £200 per flight if you want to make a real difference.

Not really. Extra £200 will mean nothing to business or rich frequent flyers but will hammer a family trying to go on its one summer holiday.

Hence why I’m in favour of making it more and more expensive as a deterrent and a tiered approach (similar to income tax model)

Why shouldn’t the family going on holiday get hammered? Still just as environmentally damaging.

CraigW

Member

Why shouldn’t the family going on holiday get hammered? Still just as environmentally damaging.

Because something like 10% of people make 70% of the flights. Therefore by taxing frequent flyers you could achieve large pollution savings without impacting normal people too much.

Increased air duty will surely come but it has to be done in baby steps, taxing people out of being able to go on holidays is not a vote winner.

Liking this debate – if flights are damaging, all flights will have to be taxed appropriately. Choosing not to fly to save the environment is a personal choice, paying the appropriate tax to offset the environmental cost should be part of that decision.

Yes, it may penalize the annual family holiday. “Daddy, why is our house flooded?” ” Never mind that, remember that great sand castle you built on the beach in Florida?”

Doesn’t matter whether it is work or pleasure – the person is flying a lot and therefore need to pay the cost or maybe take less flights if they don’t like the cost.

Then as in the OP you are penalising someone for their employers requirements.

What’s the difference? is one less polluting than the other?

In the OP I tried to explain a situation where someone who doesn’t fly often for personal would be penalised more than someone who does. Work related trips are not usually (IME) a choice of the individual.

Re business miles – business could reimburse you for the frequent flyer ‘tax’ however the extra costs will mount up and may change views on whether they need to send their employees all round the world or whether a similar outcome could be achieved via other means

See my original OP. The person or job is just offshored. I get your “get the job done by other means” but I think the vast majority of business travel is because someone need to be where they are being posted. Sure there are some meetings that people are arguably not needed to travel for due to cost these are already pretty infrequent.

“Daddy, why is our house flooded?” ” Never mind that because the nasty bloke next door took four flights on his own this year, remember that great sand castle you built on the beach in Florida

CaptainFlashheart

Nope.

Average flight distance in Europe is less than 800 miles

Air passenger duty for those distances is £13! £13 fuel tax to be powered up to 2000 miles.

Even if you flew twice per week FROM the UK (800 miles, twice per week) that would only be £1352 in tax for flying over 270000km with a total Co2 contribution of almost 31 tonnes (800miles*1.62km*4flightsperweek*52weeks*115g/kmCo2/1^6converttoTonnes ) To travel the same distance in a car (800*4*52totalmiles/35mpg*4.55litres*1.2£perllitre*0.5tax%) I’d have to pay £14k in fuel tax. 10* the amount for flying.

APD is a pathetic charge.

Lets just put prices up …
That will solve all the issues

How would this work in regards to personal Vs work flights?

Easy enough. For personal flights you pay; for work flights work pays.

They already know who flies where, wouldn’t take much to feed the data to HMRC.

Seems a good policy to me.

Would be hard to avoid, given all the tight controls around flying we already have for security etc.

A progressive indirect taxation is such a rare thing, that it’s natural for people’s instinctive reaction to be either against it in principle, or assume it’s unworkable.

but I think the vast majority of business travel is because someone need to be where they are being posted

Contract in country, don’t do business where you don’t have resource, or factor the additional tax into your bid

as well as the do it virtual etc…

I can see the argument for flat taxation, but as I said I don’t think that will make a difference to the main contributors whilst making an overseas holiday unaffordable for many (do we really want that? overseas holidays are now just for the rich?)

I also think something needs to be done with the culture we’ve fallen into of taking jobs which require hours per day to commute with all those emissions. Still another thread for that one.

I think this makes sense as a taxation. But the version I’d want would be horribly complicated. Exponential tariff so first couple of short hauls relatively innocuous but by the time you are on your 5th long flight of the year you are talking remortgage time. Personal and professional all in the one pot. Turning left not right would increase the charge commensurate with the extra CO2 it generates per passenger. Charge linked to the efficiency of the fleet of the airline you are booked with.

But……just for UK citizens? And would a long haul with a stop over get counted as one?

Reasons to be cheerful podcast had an episode on this a few weeks ago. Well worth a listen. As mentioned above vast majority of flights are taken by a tiny minority so tiered approach makes sense. I can’t remember what the guest speakers solution to business flights was, but supposedly business is a surprisingly small percentage of flights nowadays.

Increase tax amount the more you fly per tax year…
1 return flight £x pp
2-5 return flights £2x pp
5-9 return flights £4x pp
10-19 return flights £8x pp
20+ return flights £16x pp

Per flight, or based on flight distance.

Think of the revenue you could rake in off the pilots and flight stewards! 😮 😆

But the version I’d want would be horribly complicated. Exponential tariff so first couple of short hauls relatively innocuous but by the time you are on your 5th long flight of the year you are talking remortgage time. Personal and professional all in the one pot.

So what happens to the bloke who has 4 business flights per year, and one family holiday? Does his boss tell him he needs to go to Blackpool that year if he wants to keep his job? Then that same boss (who works exclusively from the UK office) takes his wife and two kids to Barbados on the cheap…

For a given flight distance (and add an extra factor for the posh seats at the front) then the tax should be the same regardless of if its your first flight of the year, or fiftieth. Its polluting the same.

That is of course if you want to
a) reduce the number of flights taken
AND/OR
b) collect a green levy to be used for government projects to reduce climate change

If your aim is
c) to make the evil rich people* and big bad corporations subsidise the unchanged lifestyle of the masses so you can shout about how green you are, then this may be Labour’s latest manifesto pledge.

*the level for being an evil rich person is of course, just slightly better off than you.

So what happens to the bloke who has 4 business flights per year, and one family holiday? Does his boss tell him he needs to go to Blackpool that year if he wants to keep his job?

It would generate very interesting conversations! I guess a good employer would compensate the employee for the difference. So if the cost would have been £200 tax if you hadn’t flown for work but is now £2000, they compensate you £1800. It could be paid at the end of the year like income tax self assessment with trips for business paid for last and charged to the employer. Basically anything that makes flying difficult and makes people think seems to be a winner. You don’t want to work for someone who makes you fly a lot. You don’t want to employ someone who flys a lot of pleasure. It’s all good.

For a given flight distance (and add an extra factor for the posh seats at the front) then the tax should be the same regardless of if its your first flight of the year, or fiftieth. Its polluting the same.

I don’t think so. I think we all agree flying is pretty hard to justify environmentally but a bit of it is always still going to happen. What is important is that we reduce it BUT crucially we share around what is left so everyone gets to do a bit of the damage but not a lot of the damage. Ramping massively the costs if you are a frequent flyer would be a fine way to do that. That seat on that aircraft would cost you £x if it was your only flight of the year but £10X if it was your 3rd or 4th. I don’t think it would be possible to have a flat fee that was both high enough to reduce flying substantially and low enough that a the bulk of the population could have access their share of the devil’s own.

Frequent flyer tax…. I’m screwed!

Well trying to do more webinars, telecoms all the time but in reality sometimes you are required to fly for business and it’s hard to avoid completely.

whilst making an overseas holiday unaffordable for many (do we really want that? overseas holidays are now just for the rich?)

When did an overseas holiday become a human rights issue?

Flying taxes? As it happens I’m currently pricing Glasgow – San Francisco return flights next year. The BA website breaks it down. For a LHR – SFO return the flight cost £190, taxes and charges £268.66. Taxed enough already thanks.

It’s an interesting question we aren’t honest enough about answering.

At what point does your right to fly (or do anything else causing polution on such a scale) trump my right to breathe air that doesn’t shorten my life?

Does your neighbour have a right to light a fire in their garden and allow the smoke to fill your house?

CraigW

Member
Why shouldn’t the family going on holiday get hammered? Still just as environmentally damaging.

That’ll be the Manchester to Benidorm fight.

but I think the vast majority of business travel is because someone need to be where they are being posted

Actually in my experience it is not. Obviously if you are doing some physical engineering it is necessary but hugely wasteful (time and environment) travel for meetings is very much the norm.

so if personal and professional are in one pot, and the rate goes up by number of flights, then simple…

make sure you take your free/cheap single flight allowance for a ski trip, then all the business flights come afterwards and get stung for ever increasing tax.  summer vacations to go sit on a beach and read a book are the dictionary description of boring, so may as well tax those.

the rabble that go to benidorm or costa del england (to get so p****ed on tequila it turns their urine pink, and spend most of the daylight hours of the holiday in bed nursing a hangover) will be practically unpenalised, cos they’re more likely to be in the 1 flight/ear demographic.

or just put up APD across the board?  or is that just too simple? and they can’t award a £10bn service contract to one of the usual IT contract companies that will pocket the cash and deliver something about as reliable as Windows ME.

What’s causing the problem?

Burning the fuel.

So the obvious answer is to tax the fuel not the person.

And if the plane flies in with duty-free fuel, simply slap a tax on the amount of fuel deemed to have been used to get there and what’s left in its tanks.

Taxes should be way higher, it’s ridiculous that I can fly from UK to Denmark for just £30. The tax should be funnelled towards some kind of environmental purpose though, not ending up in trident or tory donors pocketses.

poly

Actually in my experience it is not. Obviously if you are doing some physical engineering it is necessary but hugely wasteful (time and environment) travel for meetings is very much the norm.

Same here. I’d say about 1/10 of mine have actually needed me there in person. The rest would have been equally good as a phone call (or even email TBH).

Contract in country, don’t do business where you don’t have resource, or factor the additional tax into your bid

Product are developed in one place and sold world wide, unless you want to stop all global trade this just makes any UK business uncompetitive and offshore th job or business. Much like brexit is doing to some extent.

Question to all the people who would like the tax to apply to people personal flights for fact they have traveled for work. Should someone who works for say a cement manufacturer have additional personal tax because their employers is a hight carbon producer?

In my suggested approach the ‘tax’ you pay for the business flights is reimbursed by the business. So you should be put in no worse situation for your personal miles than anyone else. So. You don’t pay any more tax than a person who doesn’t fly for business. You are net taxed on the flights you aren’t reimbursed on.

Its the business that has to factor in the escalator in terms of costs.

Once the Cost increases past nominal levels for business there will be a chance of changing behaviour.

I love how you’ve jumped to the assumption its going to cripple UK business. You never know it might just show the UK as a leading light in trying to cut emissions and maybe others would follow. As many have said there are numerous international business flights which could be resolved other ways. When I worked in banking (sometime ago now), I used to have to fly to see my manager for a weekly 121.

Re concrete – apples and pears. But yes I think there should be an environmental tax there – on the company.

Behaviour is already changing. I have done projects in the past where I have flown 40+ weeks in the year. These days I fly once every couple of month max making use of virtual environments, web conference services and a multitude of collaboration tools.

Would have no issue with a hefty tax on aviation fuel. Business would drive down flying even more and I would consider a UK hols rather than a week in the sun. More money would be spent in the UK which hopefully offsets a reduction in tourism. Wales, South West and Scotland would be up in arms about the increased numbers. I imagine permits being required to visit Skye!

One thing is clear to me – I do need to look at my behaviour even more and make changes.