Clear on Top

Regardless of your political beliefs, it’s important for each of us to understand that the upcoming presidential election can and will have a direct impact on most aviation businesses.  Unfortunately, bashing aircraft owners and the aviation industry by the president and politicians is counterproductive and misguided.  Once you sort through the political rhetoric and look at the facts, it’s easy to see that the business aviation industry alone employs approximately 1.2 million Americans and contributes $150 million to our economy.  General aviation aircraft are used by individuals, businesses to transport their employees, for air ambulance operations, passenger charter, cargo transportation for many industries, firefighting, flight training, law enforcement, search and rescue, news and traffic reporting, pipeline and powerline patrol, charity work, crop dusting and for many other important missions.  This week charity flights and humanitarian relief efforts are playing an important role in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy.  Punishing aircraft owners and aviation businesses with higher taxes, fees, and regulations will make it harder for companies to operate and gives them less incentive to buy or own an aircraft.  Many of us in the aviation industry have already felt the impact of the bad economy and higher aviation fuel prices over the last several years.  We don’t need the politicians and government punishing us and mischaracterizing the use of airplanes in our country.

Unfortunately, it goes beyond our aviation businesses. The politicians in Washington have increased our national debt to over $16 Trillion (and it’s still growing).  Some of these same politicians feel the answer to the debt crisis they created by not passing a budget in over three years or by their reckless and irresponsible spending, is to increase taxes on those who create jobs.  Companies cannot just magically absorb and pay more taxes without it affecting some other part of their business.  Unfortunately, we can’t just increase the price of our products and pass it on to our customers so we can pay more taxes.  Today, even small businesses like ours, have to pay a massive amount of taxes including: federal taxes, state taxes, sales and use taxes, F&E taxes, property taxes, unemployment taxes, and payroll taxes to name a few.  This doesn’t include the taxes we pay as individuals.  We cannot take on the burden of more taxes.

Please take the time to read, study and understand what’s happening including the long-term impact some of the irresponsible and self-serving politicians have on our country, our companies, and to us as individuals.

Please visit our web site at: www.ChappellSmith.com or www.AviationInsurance.com or call us TODAY at 1.800.999.1109.