User Fees

[mike roe]

This is a easy way to voice your objection to back door user fees. I suggest everyone use the link below. If you love general aviation take action otherwise it could be another nail.
Mike Roe


http://govt.eaa.org/10387/this-isnt-ove ... ?m=4510047

[hilltop170]

Sent mine yesterday, a couple of posts after George's.

[canav8]

done

[n9gmr]

What are back door user fees?

[bagarre]

Getting us to agree to fuel taxes as a way to pay for services and then turning around and telling us we need to pay for the service via use fees as well.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

What are back door user fees?

This is when a Government agency demands a fee for a service which has been already or should be paid from taxes collected. The agency doesn't have the authority to tax and so they arbitrarily with little oversite demand a fee. In this case is literally holding the EAA hostage because of the size of the event which could not go on in its planned form without the service that had always been provided.

The FAA provides a service for ALL of us whether we think we use the airway system or not. A large part of its budget is collected through taxes on fuel. This works pretty well because if you are a large user of their services like the airlines are, you pay more because you use more fuel. In recent years it has been popular for administrations to want to impose additional user fees because they think more revenue will be collected. These would be fees paid when someone uses a service. What they are targeting is the little guy who they feel is not paying their share because they don't burn enough gas to pay in the tax for the service they think we use. Problem is most of use don't use the services they think we do. So far a user fee system has been blocked by Congress. So in this case an agency, without precedent, late in the game is demanding a fee for service, even though Congress has blocked a user fee system. This is why the term back door is applied.

[GAHorn]

Bruce, actually the airlines do not pay fuel tax. They collect ticket taxes. General Aviation pays fuel taxes. Both schemes supposedly fund the ATC system. Many GA aircraft actually use very few ATC services, and that fact provides fodder for some arguments of unfairness. (I think that is offset somewhat by the use of autogas in many aircraft....but raises yet another discussion regarding roadway system funding.)

Anyway, I think you hit the essence of the matter for Matt, I just knew someone might hijack the thread if we didn't point out the differences.