American military forces are about to lose a special tax break. As of 2006, says US European Command, US troops stationed in Turkey no longer will be exempt from paying federal taxes. The Pentagon stations nearly 2,000 troops there, including several hundred airmen at Incirlik Air Base. EUCOM announced the bad news last week. The change comes about because Turkey, as of Dec. 31, won’t anymore be considered a front-line state in support of the war in Iraq. The Pentagon terminated that status. The tax break had been in effect since January 2003.
The Air Force wants to pump more than $12 billion over the next five years into its new affordable long-range missiles program and recently asked industry to push the flights of some of those munitions beyond 1,200 miles.