Our Legislature is once again taking up the idea of taxing new aircraft (Avweb), which drives the small airplane folks over the border into New Hampshire and the big airplane folks to Advocate Tax for a “solution” (starts with the aircraft owned by an LLC somewhere other than Massachusetts, presumably).
[Plainly nobody is going to pay $6.25 million in sales tax on a $100 million Gulfstream if the plane, pilots, and mechanics can be based in New Hampshire and the plane can swoop in, pick up the rich people, and fly out (has the effect of doubling aircraft noise for neighbors since there are two operations instead of one).]
I had wondered why PlaneSense, whose owner lives in Massachusetts, hadn’t moved down from New Hampshire (huge base that generates lots of jobs) when Massachusetts went tax-free for aircraft. Presumably the owner figured out that the Legislature wouldn’t be able to resist reinstating the tax. Smart guy!
Bernie Sanders would be proud, presumably…
I’m not buying the doubled-noise argument. Any Massachusetts-based plane serving as a taxi for the rich is going to have to return to Massachusetts at some point and will therefore have just as many Massachusetts-based take offs and landings as a New Hamshire-based plane operating as a taxi. In addition, a Massachusetts-based plane will probably be taking off and landing for other reasons as well, thus subjecting its airport’s neighbors to more noise than a New Hampshire-based plane.
This is why Communists were so interested in spreading Communism and why they kept their people (and their capital) locked up. If you allow capital to move freely it will flow away from highly taxed/regulated environment toward the lower. Airplanes are a tax man’s nightmare because they can just fly away. Cuba has reached the logical conclusion – just ban all private aircraft. Places like Massachusetts are just waypoints on that road but soft socialists are either in denial about this or else they know and just won’t admit it publicly.