19. Department of Transportation · Notable · Needs Congress
Replace aviation user taxes with fees paid directly to the ATO
Printed page 634 19. Department of Transportation
“Shift from aviation user taxes to fees for air traffic services paid directly to the ATO.”
What has happened
- Not started
Aviation excise taxes are unchanged. The only new aviation-adjacent user fee enacted in the window is section 40004 of P.L. 119-21, which imposes a per-pound space launch and reentry licensing and permitting fee from 2026 (51 U.S.C. 50924) - and that fee is deposited into a Treasury account for the FAA's commercial space office, is an addition to the existing tax structure rather than a replacement for it, and is not paid to the Air Traffic Organization. Congress went further the other way in P.L. 119-75 sec. 119G, barring any funds from being used to plan, design or implement separation of the ATO, which is the arrangement this ask presupposes.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Overlaps #1743, which is leveled partial on the same section 40004: #1743 asks only for user fees on unconventional airspace users, which section 40004 delivers for space launch and reentry, while this Quote asks for aviation user taxes to be replaced by fees paid to the ATO, which section 40004 does not do. Playbook section 3b, progress is measured on this ask.
- No bill in the Corpus proposes air traffic service fees or an ATO revenue stream.
- Action
- other
- Object
- Aviation user taxes / air traffic service fees
- ID
- 1741