Push to cut aircraft maintenance tax burden resumes in Maryland
A growing coalition representing Maryland’s aircraft maintenance and repair industry is renewing efforts to win a sales-and-use tax exemption for parts and components installed in the state.
AOPA’s state legislative advocacy efforts have long made reducing the cost of aircraft ownership and improving the competitiveness of local aviation industries a top priority. In numerous states, lawmakers have recognized that competitive pricing of aircraft maintenance is key to keeping aircraft owners from taking their aircraft out of state for repairs—and that usually includes exempting parts used in the jobs from state sales taxes.
“The data is vitally important” to the legislative effort, he said.
A draft bill for the new legislative session contains provisions allowing measurement of the proposal’s true impact on tax revenue against gains in employment in the industry in Maryland.
The effort to bring Maryland in line with more aviation-friendly policies “continually gets hung up on the mistaken belief that the exemption would have a greater fiscal impact than the industry believes would be the case,” Collins said.
That blockade creates a serious problem for the industry: A 2018 survey made clear that Maryland’s industry is “shrinking” and the tax policy puts it “at a competitive disadvantage with repair shops from Virginia to Maine,” as Collins pointed out during testimony in the previous legislative session.
“Neighboring states like Pennsylvania and Virginia already provide this incentive,” he added, encouraging members in Maryland to urge their aircraft-maintenance shops to complete the survey.
