Air Tax Rise Grounded for a Year

Next month's inflation-rate rise in the controversial Air Passenger Duty (APD) airport departure tax will be delayed until April 2012, Chancellor George Osborne has announced.

He said the Government would now seek to impose the tax on private jets.

But plans to replace APD with a per-plane tax have been shelved for the time being after Mr Osborne announced that all the options being pursued had turned out to be illegal under international law.

First introduced in 1994, APD has been increased on a regular basis, with a hike last November putting rates up as high as £170 per passenger for those going on the longest flights.

Mr Osborne said the Government was consulting on reform of APD and he cited the difficulties of the current scheme by telling MPs that APD assumed that the Caribbean was further away from the UK than California. cont./

Courtesy of: UK Press Association