Corporate pilots have had a word to the wise when flying to Indiana: Avoid doing so on an empty tank.
The reason: Indiana’s tax on aviation fuel long has been among the highest in the nation. Most out-of-state pilots don’t use Indiana as a refueling stop, and they never top off their tanks with Hoosier fuel if they can help it. The additional cost can amount to hundreds of dollars.
But that advice will have to change. Beginning Monday, Indiana will exempt aviation fuel from the 7 percent state sales tax and substitute a flat 10 cents-a-gallon excise tax. Sales tax also no longer will be charged for maintenance and service work on planes.
As a result, Indiana could become a fly-to instead of a fly-over state for aviation fuel sold at the state’s 100 public-use airports. And the 68 airplane maintenance shops around the state could see their business take off, as well.
At Metropolitan Airport in Fishers, where three mechanics worked on some of the seven planes parked last week in a maintenance hangar, the tax cuts for general aviation stand to “have significant impact,” said Tom McCord, sales manager at Tom Wood Aviation, the airport’s fixed-base operator.
“I think we are going to see an increase in aviation activity across the board.”
Passed by the last session of the General Assembly after determined lobbying by the aviation industry, the tax change “is going to give us a competitive
advantage” in fuel sales, McCord said, while cutting costs of fixing and maintaining planes and operating planes for flight schools....
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