Getting a cheap ticket somewhere is as welcome a surprise as anything. There are whole forums devoted to award travel, entire companies and platforms searching for cheap flights, and shoestring travelers looking for the biggest bang for their buck. Whatever the price of the ticket, there’s one thing that’s for sure: taxes. Every time a traveler buys a plane ticket, 7.5% of the fare goes to the federal government. But those rich enough to zip through the skies in private jets aren’t subject to the same ticket tax.
That difference is one piece of what the Institute for Policy Studies called a “taxpayer subsidy” for private aviation in a September report. Noncommercial private jets account for about 7% of flights handled by the Federal Aviation Administration, but contribute just 0.6% of the taxes flowing into the fund that helps finance it, according to the Department of Transportation.
