You Can Avoid Those Pesky Renewals, And Get A Tax Break

We're big fans of AOPA here. (Member #2,767,043 speaking). So imagine our delight on discovering that you can get a life membership through AOPA's Air Safety Foundation.

Better yet, the membership is structured as, largely, a tax-deductible donation to the AOPA Air Safety Foundation -- those guys and gals that do good stuff like the Thunderstorms: A Case Study minicourse we just told you about yesterday.

A life membership costs $2,500. Along with blessed relief from renewal postcards, and all the myriad benefits of AOPA as long as your heart beats to exercise them, you get a bunch of little goodies. These include a certificate signed by AOPA President Phil Boyer and ASF President Bruce Landsberg, a Life Member card and lapel pin, and your name in lights. No, I made the "name in lights" bit up, you actually get your name in the ASF's annual Safety and Philanthropy report.

And I bet you didn't even know you were a philanthropist!

By spending $2,000 pretax dollars on this useful membership, it's almost as if you're earmarking taxes you'd otherwise pay to go to air safety, rather than stuff you don't like. No matter where you are politically, the government spends your tax money on some things that drive you nuts -- here's your chance to direct the money towards keeping pilots, like yourself, and their passengers, safe.

Life memberships not only let you make your mark on public policy, they make actuarial sense. Considering the tax deduction, you're really only out $500 in after-tax dollars -- so if you're planning to live, and fly, more than about twelve years and ten months, then you come out ahead!

Now, what if you're a starving student, and for you $2,500 is what you plan to spend on (if gas prices keep going this way) eight or nine hours of dual in a Cherokee 140? Well, AOPA's got you covered, too. They have a flight-training membership for student pilots -- and it's FREE. Ask your instructor (and if he or she doesn't know, vector said instructor to aopa.org to find out).

And for the folks in between, there's regular annual membership, a bargain at $39. But if you're up for life membership, contact the ASF's Harvey Cohen at  800-955-9115 or harvey.cohen@aopa.org. He'll hook you up!

Now, if only the business office of this fine publication would pay us enough to NEED a tax deduction...

FMI: www.aopa.org/asf/development/life_associate.html