Time to Tax Those Checked Bag Fees?

Aug. 4, 2010 — -- So you're at JFK and there's your grandma, waiting in line at security, when she gets pulled aside by the TSA for a "special" going-over (while you do a slow burn). Guess what? You're paying for that.

You might be surprised at some of the things you pay for, courtesy of all those taxes and fees levied on that airline ticket of yours. I don't think you'd mind paying some of them, but it's not cheap -- and if you think the taxes and fees make up about 10 percent of your ticket price or so, think again.

Here's an example: you're so jazzed that you've scored one of those elusive $99 each-way cross country fares that you don't even care that it's not a nonstop. However, it's not a $200 fare either, not when you add in the taxes and fees. Let me show the figures for this roundtrip airfare:

Total airfare: $200. Total taxes and fees: $57.80 for a total ticket price of $257.80. And the taxes and fees represent 28.9 percent of your ticket -- almost 30 percent. Of course, this doesn't include a checked-bag fee (or Spirit's new carry-on fee, which could cost as much as $45 each-way).

So the price of your ticket has zoomed. It's especially high when you consider the taxes you paid on that Kindle you scored from Amazon.com. What taxes? Exactly. Unless you live in Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Dakota, or Washington, you didn't pay any taxes for that electronic gizmo.