Dovster

The latest number that I can find (from Forbes) is 1/3rd of Americans have passports. That means that 2 out of 3 would be happy to screw over the passport holders and get additional tax money without them paying anything.

(Smokers are a minority and look how happy every non-smoker is every time taxes on cigarettes are raised.)

GUWonder

Your second sentence is the product of assuming that at least half of those 2/3 of Americans haven't had a valid passport in the recent past and/or wouldn't be interested in having one (perhaps again) in the future.

I doubt as large a proportion of non-smokers or past nicotine addicts look forward to smoking a cigarette as look forward to having a passport and making use of the passport.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/willia...b_1920287.html

I have little doubt that over 40+% of likely registered voters in the 2016 national election have or have had a valid passport at some time in the past 10 years or are likely to get one well within ten years.

In our system of government, a large minority with more concentrated interests at stake often gets its way over the diffuse interests of the majority. That's why lobbyists and their paying special interest groups win.

Given how much anti-government, anti-IRS/tax and anti-TSA sentiment is out there, I would expect any mythical national referendum on a TSA tax hike would probably go the way of school board lending/spending/property tax initiatives on local ballots around rural, graying communities: anything but a guaranteed success for the taxes favored by "big spenders" in government.

Dovster

Anti-TSA sentiment is mostly confined to those who fly quite a bit (a distinct minority) and anti-IRS sentiment is hard to find among people who pay no taxes at all.

The words in your quote which I put in bold-face are key to what I am saying. Folks in graying communities feel they get no benefit from school taxes and hence are opposed to any increases. People with young children feel quite a bit differently.

Pay a tax? Nobody really likes it but don't complain if they feel they are getting a benefit.

Someone else paying a tax that you don't have to pay? Wonderful!

GUWonder

Anti-TSA sentiment apparently is not confined to just those who fly quite a bit, as even non-flying former TSA employees seem to have anti-TSA sentiment in their heart sometimes. And anti-federal government employment sentiment covers the TSA too.

Anti-IRS sentiment is not limited to those who don't pay any taxes. Plenty of people subject to IRS withholding seem to be critics of taxation.

When FFers feel they are paying more of a tax and not getting a benefit from it, they will complain about it more than majority which could care less about whether or not the government taxes someone else as long as it's not them.

While a majority will not care enough to actively oppose a tax that hits someone else, a majority also will not care enough to actively support a tax that hits someone else.

People act more when they have concentrated benefits or concentrated losses in play than when they have diffuse benefits or diffuse costs in play -- even when the involved amounts of the benefits/costs for the aggregated majority far exceed the involved amounts of the benefits/costs for the the aggregated minority.

I doubt a national majority would turn out to vote in a mythical stand-alone referendum that grants or denies the TSA additional tax revenue. A minority would show up to vote and the minority would likely be mostly those opposed to such a tax hike.

TSAPressSec

We have posted a statement about this increase here. You can also read the Federal Register notice.

This increase is part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. The law restructures the fee limitation from up to $2.50 per leg of a connecting flight (capped at $5 per one-way trip), to a flat $5.60 per one-way trip.

GUWonder

Welcome to FT.

Dovster

I went to the first link and read that "As required by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, TSA has published an interim final rule to the Federal Register to restructure the September 11th Security Fee".

I know what a final rule is. I also know what an interim rule is.

What I can't figure out is what an "interim final rule" is. Could you please explain what that phrase means?

TSAPressSec

An interim final rule (IFR) is an immediate implementation of a rule by federal agencies without prior public comment on a rule-making proposal. In this case, the IFR is effective at 12:00 a.m. ET July 21, 2014. Comments must be received by August 19, 2014.

Dovster

That would seem to me to mean one of two things:

1. The rule is truly an interim one and no decision about it being a final rule will be made until August 19, when the TSA has read the public input and determined whether or not objections to the rule are valid and the rule should be removed or revised.

or

2. The rule is, indeed, a final one and in no way interim. No matter what the public feels about it, and even if the objections show the rule to be a bad one, it will remain in effect. If that is the case, there seems to be no point in posting it and offering the opportunity for the public to comment.

Am I right? If so, which is it -- # 1 or # 2?

(I am not trying to give you a hard time. Having served in the U.S. Army I am very familiar with government bureaucracy and its habit of calling things by strange names -- such as an "entrenching tool" instead of a "shovel". I am simply trying to find out what the actual situation is here.)

TSAPressSec

The requirements of the IFR are effective 30 days from the date of publication --today -- in order to be as consistent as possible with the July 1, 2014, effective date in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013.

Despite the effective date, we are providing a 60-day window for comments on TSA's implementation of the statutory restructuring of the fee per the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013.

TSA will consider all comments before issuing a final rule with response to comments.

mkr

So this information gets buried in FT in a Forum hardly anyone ever reads

Canarsie

Think again...

Steve GadFly

How about if the TSA makes some of the money it needs by actually enforcing PreCheck and only allowing people with Global Entry or those who have paid the fee to use it. The fact that so many people are being given PreCheck who don't fit that criteria is probably significantly reducing the enrollment numbers since people have learned that they'll get to leave their shoes on anyway. In addition, more line monitors have to be working to explain the "new" rules to the uninformed occasional travelers who shouldn't be there in the first place.

Seems like it's a waste of resources and money is being left on the table.

GUWonder

The TSA applied definition of $5.60 per "one-way trip" isn't one and the same as the more common definition of $5.60 per "one-way trip" -- at least if the USA Today article got it right. I have had some one-way domestic trips where this TSA creative definition of "one-way trip" would mean an increase to $16.80 in TSA taxes.

Just because a mileage ticket or some other discounted economy class ticket involves a long connection time of somewhat over 4 hours on a one-way trip, the passenger is going to have to pay way more in TSA taxes even as they aren't even generally being rescreened at the airport screening checkpoints at connection airports and have paid in time already? This seems to be a move aimed at financially hitting those flyers on way tighter budgets than the relatively rich folk in the DC area.

It sounds like this kind of creative redefinition of "one-way trip" by the TSA for tax grabbing purposes is going to disproportionately harm those passengers who are poorer and/or fly from smaller airports and/or fly on cheaper/mileage tickets than it will hit those financially padded types living the good life on the federal employment payrolls around DC.

Here on FT we kept being told that the airlines' "firing" or fleecing relatively poorer customers is great for business. And now we also have the TSA putting such non-rich customers in the firing line too by significantly hiking taxes on the element of passengers who are less able to afford it?

I have no doubt that the TSA's creative redefinition of roundtrip/one-way trips for tax purposes will stick once it is applied -- at least unless and until the airline lobbyists get their way and get to eat that money instead.

mre5765

I didn't see any way to provide comments. Please post a link or an email address. Thanks.