[jltsiren]

Which is a tax on jet fuel, not on carbon emissions. If you raise the tax to cover the negative externalities, you create an incentive to use other fuels that may be less efficient and more harmful but cheaper. If you extend the tax to cover the use of all fuels in aviation, you need a mechanism to prevent people from using fuels bought for other purposes.

Regulation is difficult, especially when you are trying to outwit the market.

[Dylan16807]

There is also sufficient regulation in place to make sure jets don't put random garbage in their fuel tanks. Not that you need it, because it would damage the engines.

I have no idea what you think a passenger jet would switch to?

[jltsiren]

Not random garbage but fuels the engines are specifically designed to use. After the regulations are in place, in order to circumvent them.

If writing regulations that have the intended effect without significant downsides was as easy as you suggest, tax planning would not be a big business.

[Dylan16807]

Vehicle fuel regulations seem pretty solid to me.

It's not like a whole airline can get away with not reporting how much fuel they buy, and a carbon tax would apply to all their fuels.

Many taxes are complicated and flawed, but this kind is already good to go.

[jltsiren]

How do you define an airline? Especially if the company is active in multiple fields of business. Would a business that operates both planes and trucks have an advantage or a disadvantage under your tax scheme?

How do you deal with refueling at international destinations and possible carbon taxes in the destination country?

Do you actually want to tax carbon emissions or climate impact? A synthetic fuel could plausibly be carbon neutral, but burning it at the cruising altitude would still have an impact on climate change.

[Dylan16807]

I don't need to define an airline. The tax applies to anyone fueling a plane, and I was just saying that airlines are huge and they're not going to hide.

A business with other things has no advantage or disadvantage.

> How do you deal with refueling at international destinations and possible carbon taxes in the destination country?

Pick an option. It won't make much difference.

> Do you actually want to tax carbon emissions or climate impact? A synthetic fuel could plausibly be carbon neutral, but burning it at the cruising altitude would still have an impact on climate change.

We can have that as a possibility. Probably it's worth wording the law so that the tax scales with the remediation cost.

[jltsiren]

First, you are thinking about the airlines that exist today, rather than the businesses that would exist under the new regulations. If it's more tax efficient to operate the hypothetical supersonic business jets under a multi-industry conglomerate, that may well be what's going to happen.

Second, international refueling has historically been the main reason why jet fuel cannot be taxed properly. In many European countries, gas has long been much more expensive than jet fuel. If you try taxing jet fuel without coordinating the tax scheme with nearby countries, the end result is increased emissions. Planes will refuel under a more favorable tax regime, fly with a heavier fuel load, and maybe even trade some payload for fuel. Airlines may also route their flights suboptimally to take better advantage of cheaper fuel.

Third, if you want to tax climate impact, it's not enough to tax fuel. You have to collect data on where the fuel is actually used and build new systems for ensuring that the reported data is correct. And then you need a model for calculating taxes from the data, which is going to be a politically contested issue. Especially when the model is changed according to the latest scientific understanding.

[ClumsyPilot]

Are you completely unaware of thebfact that majorn Corporations report billions in profits and pay zero taxes for the past 20 years?

That we have a multi billion dollar industry designed to assist with this process?

Are you aware of the bottomless pit of fraud the carbon yax credita have become?

Or that 80% of plastic recycling and electrinics recycling is fake?

[Dylan16807]

I don't think many entities are escaping fuel taxes. They're one of the better designed systems. And they still apply even if you avoid income tax.

Carbon credits don't even resemble a fuel tax. That fraud doesn't matter here.

Why is fake recycling relevant to a discussion of taxes?