Iowa Aircraft Registration Fee Increase Proposed

jnmeade

jnmeade

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Jim Meade
A draft bill in the Iowa Senate proposes to raise airplane registration fees by around 50%. The first year fee used to 1% of the manufacturers list price; under the proposal it goes to 1.5%. Top fee goes from $5000 to $7000. A new $500,000 aircraft fee used to be $5000, now it would be $7000. It seems your C182 will cap out the same way your Pilatus would. Aircraft over 30 years used to pay $35 a year, now they would pay $100. A new feature is 4.5% of the money would go for an extra fund for commercial airports, 1.5% would go to fund general aviation airports. This kitty is on top of anything the general assembly provides and doesn't need matching funds as the general assembly money does. Kind of a nice little extra discretional pot, eh?

Iowa Legislature - BillBook

Information pertaining to the Iowa Legislature as well as the Executive and Judicial branch in as much as they relate to the legislative branch
www.legis.iowa.gov www.legis.iowa.gov
 
I'm glad our otherwise "high tax state" does not try to do this kind of thing. And there is no sales tax on aviation parts or labor.
 
Sad there should be no tax…simply a money grab with zero benefit for the tax…pay my city tax I get police and parks….I am cool with that…pay a state aircraft tax not sure where that goes…glad I am in Texas.
 
Probably better to let the airports deteriorate than ask the users to pay more.
 
Clip4 said:
Probably better to let the airports deteriorate than ask the users to pay more.
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I just paid $1100 county tax for one of my planes. They provide a list of where the money goes and none of it goes to the airport.
 
i bought an aircraft from Iowa a couple years ago...and last fall started getting threatening letters from the state DOT about paying use tax. I left them a phone message reminding them that they mailed the letter to Kansas, the glider is registered in Kansas and based in Kansas and I live in Kansas and I don't owe any tax in Iowa. I asked them to quit harassing me. So far no more letters.

Kansas exempts aircraft over 30 years from property tax but its not automatic you have to apply for it. Also annoying but keeps a few bureaucrats employed.
 
Clip4 said:
Probably better to let the airports deteriorate than ask the users to pay more.
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I can tell you the airports were asking for more infrastructure investment as usual, but this isn't the route they were asking for. I'm not sure the legislative dynamic that came up with this strategy.
 
tonycondon said:
i bought an aircraft from Iowa a couple years ago...and last fall started getting threatening letters from the state DOT about paying use tax. I left them a phone message reminding them that they mailed the letter to Kansas, the glider is registered in Kansas and based in Kansas and I live in Kansas and I don't owe any tax in Iowa. I asked them to quit harassing me. So far no more letters.

Kansas exempts aircraft over 30 years from property tax but its not automatic you have to apply for it. Also annoying but keeps a few bureaucrats employed.
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You can probably blame the airport from which you purchased the aircraft from. Iowa uses the Based Aircraft database managed by the FAA, that airports use to report the tail numbers of their based aircraft. Likely your tail number was not removed from that airport in a timely fashion, so Iowa sent a reminder out to the current registration address. A simple letter or phone call is all it takes to deal with it, they are actually good people.
 
the letter wasn't friendly. paragraphs about all the penalties i was subject to for not paying them. i'm sure they're good people, they're from Iowa, like me. but they should maybe look at the address of the registered owner before sending their robomail.
 
DesertNomad said:
I just paid $1100 county tax for one of my planes. They provide a list of where the money goes and none of it goes to the airport.
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At least you got a list. Most of my taxes it's just...thanks. Except without the thanks.
 
DesertNomad said:
I just paid $1100 county tax for one of my planes. They provide a list of where the money goes and none of it goes to the airport.
Click to expand...
That’s ok, when I come to Iowa they tax the alcoholic beverages I purchase and none of the money goes toward a party.
 
Other than collection of taxes, what is the purpose of the state registration? What value do you and I get because airplane owners have to fill out a form for the state?
 
bflynn said:
Other than collection of taxes, what is the purpose of the state registration? What value do you and I get because airplane owners have to fill out a form for the state?
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You’re not supposed to ask those questions. You are supposed to comply. Period.
 
FWIW, the Iowa airport groups seem to be opposing this bill as well. We worked too hard to get the sales tax exemption on parts and labor. This bill is a lose/lose.
 
I heard from the AOPA regional ASN manager yesterday. He had testified against this bill virtually at a meeting of the Senate Transportation Committee along with several other groups, but the committee voted to move it forward to the full Transportation Committee. Expect more action on this in the future. This bill represents a poor method for addressing an expected decrease in funds traditionally used for airport projects. As always, we have the option of contacting the Committee Chair or our own Senator if they are on this committee.
 
The most painful check I ever wrote for my Bonanza was to the Iowa DOT for the use tax after I bought the airplane. The $35/year since then are more of a nuisance; that amount doesn't hurt me much financially but it's easy to imagine it costs the State of Iowa more to process my transaction than $35. So why not just get rid of it instead of creating busy work without any downstream benefit? Ah, but wait: if we increase it to $100, there'll be a few crumbs left for the State. Problem solved, right?

When I see the money being thrown at some airports in Iowa, I can't help but think there is too much, not too little funding available. Brand new passenger terminals for airports that have two or three flights each day (e.g. Dubuque or Mason City). Or the new FBO building at my home airport Cedar Rapids - it's going to be beautiful, but there is nothing wrong with the current FBO building.

All the while, hangar space is scarce at most airports. I really wish the GA community had more influence over how much money they contribute and what purposes it serves. If we leave it to politics, the spend will just grow and grow and grow, with little or no transparency on where it goes.

- Martin
 
in this case its important to delineate federal funds and state funds. to be fair quite a lot of the iowa dot grant $'s are going toward hangar construction. they also do a lot of pavement projects and AWOS installation/maintenance.

 
We just had our state renewals come out in NH. For "antique" aircraft or gliders, its $100 a year.
The autobot billing system just sent out bills for twice the normal fees. So the state had to resend everything with the corrected amount. Twice the cost for postage, envelopes and printing to the state. Unrecoverable expenses. I informed the State Aeronautics Commission that they need to recoup that expense from the vendor that wrote the program. They had just changed "systems", when the billing error occurred.

In NH, the State Aircraft Registration Fee goes into a fund for airports that do not qualify for Federal Support. It cannot be touched by the "General Fund". Private Public use airports. A local airport was able to receive funds which helped fix some drainage issues and re seeding on the grass runway.
 
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