REFLECTOR: FAA OUTRAGE: Increased taxes on General Aviation?

[Don Johnston]

Pay careful attention to the date of the story.


   ANN *April 1st Special Edition*:_/*FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt
   is reportedly considering tacking a surcharge onto renewal fees paid
   by pilots. The surcharges would be based on the number of hours a
   pilot flies in any given year.

Due to decreasing revenues to the federal government, and because the
President and Congress has asked all government agencies to come up with
ways to not only save money, but to also increase revenues, the FAA has
developed this fee scale for nearly ALL pilots, most of them holding
GA-related certificates and ratings, with different annual renewal fees
dependent upon ratings and endorsements and hours flown each year.
In an internal memo forwarded to ANN, the Administrator proposes a
registration fee structure that begins with a basic registration fee of
$20. For pilots logging from 0 to 99.9 hours annually in the previous
calendar year there will be a $100 surcharge each renewal period. The
FAA says the surcharge is intended to offset the revenue from Federal
aviation fuel taxes that the pilot did NOT pay by not flying at least
100 hours during the previous year.  all pilots, for the first time,
will not only have to renew what was previously a lifetime certificate
and pay annually, but will also have to keep a logbook and make entries
for each flight to avoid the additional fees.
For pilots holding advanced ratings (beyond S.E.L. etc), the fees will
be similar. However, Babbitt notes in an internal memo that all flight
hours will not count in the hours requirement for this section of the
new regulation.  For instance, in addition to paying for your S.E.L.
rating every year, if you have an Instrument Rating, there will be an
additional $10 annual charge for that rating as well as an additional
surcharge of $100 if fewer than 10 hours of actual IFR flight are
logged.  These 10 hours will count towards your annual total flight
hours, but an Instrument Rated pilot could find him or herself in a
situation where he or she flew 200 hours in a calendar year, but of
them, only 9.5 were IFR, and is assessed an additional $100.

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Pilots who fly aircraft which run on mogas or other alternative fuels
will also be assessed additional fees based on any STC on file with the
FAA. Those will be in addition to the low-time surcharge. Sport Pilot
fees begin at $10 for basic renewal, and the first surcharge is $50 for
those flying under 100 hours.
EAA President Tom Poberezny called the proposal "just about the
stupidest thing I've seen come down the pike since since Orville and
Wilbur knocked together that first airplane in shed in Kitty Hawk in
December." NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen said the new fee structure is
"simply outrageous! The monitoring will cause nightmares for pilots AND
will be hard to prove if the FAA ever audits you as an individual
pilot." However, several iPhone and iPad apps are reportedly already in
development to automatically track your flight time and push that data
to a federal government server.
For those who determine they are unable to afford the fee structure, the
FAA does make a provision for terminating your pilot certificate
privileges. Fees for termination, which are irrevocable, begin at $50
for Sport Pilot, and increase based on additional ratings and endorsements.

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