Amazon founder Jeff Bezos received a roughly $244,000 bill from Los Angeles County over overdue taxes and fees tied to his luxury private jet. Jeff Bezos found himself paying a heavy bill officials intensified the crackdown on wealthy aircraft owners who may have failed to pay California property taxes. The bill is part of a much larger effort led by Los Angeles County Assessor Jeff Prang to identify private jets that spend significant time in the county but have not been properly taxed there.
Under California law, private aircraft are subject to an annual property tax of about 1% of their assessed value. It doesn't really matter where a plane is registered or where its owner lives. Instead, the tax depends on where the aircraft is “habitually situated” when it is not flying, according to Luxury Launches.
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That means a private jet belonging to someone who lives elsewhere can still owe Los Angeles County taxes if the aircraft spends most of its time on the ground in the county.
Owners are also required to report their aircraft and its value to the county assessor. Those who miss the payment deadline can face additional penalties on top of the underlying tax bill. According to a Los Angeles Times report, Bezos was among the aircraft owners who received a final bill by the June 30 deadline. His bill was approximately $244,000.
Los Angeles County expects to collect $38 million
The Bezos bill is only part of a much broader investigation. The assessor's office mailed hundreds of bills to aircraft owners it says failed to pay the required taxes on time. The effort is expected to bring an additional $38 million into county coffers.
Jeff Prang, who won reelection in June, said the investigation revealed that the underpayment problem was much larger than his office had initially estimated. The county's focus has been on wealthy individuals and companies whose aircraft may have been spending substantial amounts of time in Los Angeles County without being properly reported for taxation.
How officials are tracking private jets
The investigation received a major boost last year when the assessor's office obtained detailed aircraft location data. The information comes from ADS-B Out, a tracking system that the Federal Aviation Administration mandated by 2020 primarily to help with collision avoidance and air traffic management.
