Times Record: Senator Gerzofsky's proposal to repleal plane tax moves toward final enactment
Language to kill a state sales tax imposed on certain airplanes bought outside Maine — but used in the state on at least 20 different days within a year — was initially proposed in two different bills sponsored during the current legislative session by Republican Senate President Kevin Raye of Perry and Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, respectively.
Gerzofsky said a lesser known, but related, measure he proposed will also eliminate a 5 percent sales tax on parts used in airplane overhaul work.
“It’s going to put us at an advantage over other places, or bring us even with other places where that tax isn’t charged,” Gerzofsky told The Times Record this morning. “You’re going to see aircraft coming to Maine for service and overhaul work in far bigger numbers. Brunswick is the newest airport in New England, it’s also got the finest facilities for doing the overhaul work.
“When you look at the trickle down job effect, you’re not only overhauling motors, you’re also reupholstering, you’re painting, you’re rewiring,” he continued. “When these planes are overhauled, they’re brought back to fresh. We’ll be able to use our facilities better and add hundreds of jobs just here in Brunswick.”
As the Legislature hit the home stretch in recent weeks, Gerzofsky said, the airplane tax repeals were inserted as provisions in the $6.1 billion state budget considered Wednesday in both the House and Senate.
The removal of the airplane taxes has long been championed by Gerzofsky and members of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, who are focused on drumming up air business at Brunswick Executive Airport, opened this spring at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station airfield.
Gerzofsky and MRRA Executive Director Steve Levesque have both said the state’s current tax structure for aircraft places a “black mark” on Maine for recreational pilots and those who use small airplanes for business travel.
The “20-day tax” applies only to airplanes lighter than 6,000 pounds.
Craig Fuller, president of the influential Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, visited the new facility during the Brunswick airport’s International Fly-In earlier this month, and told The Times Record the state’s airplane taxes “inhibited” the growth of the aviation industry in Maine.
At that time, Fuller also said he was “encouraged” by efforts to overturn those tax policies.
Massachusetts pilot David Abrams counted himself among those turned off by the state’s airplane taxes. In an email to The Times Record written in response to a May 20 report on state airplane sales taxes, Abrams wrote that he used to fly to Maine “dozens of times per year” before the taxes deterred him.
“When I used to fly to Maine, I spent money on aviation gas, food, inns and souvenirs,” he wrote. “In the last four-plus years my tourist dollars have gone to (New York, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont). Early next month I am planning two four-day weekend flying trips, one to Montreal and one to Vermont. I am sure the amount my wife and I will spend on each trip is in the thousands of dollars.
“I suspect, given the fact that airplane owners must have fairly high incomes to afford flying, a boycott of Maine costs more in lost tourist revenue than the tax takes in,” he continued, adding: “Rather than count visits, it is much easier to count zero and visit all the other states around Maine, which do not threaten me with a punitive tax for visiting them and spending money in the state.”