Tax Break for Bicycle Commuters
Rachel Gordon of the San Francisco Chronicle reports on a positive aspect of the $850 Billion bailout bill:
Starting in January, workers who use two-wheelers as their primary transportation mode to get to and from work will be eligible for a $20-a-month, tax-free reimbursement from their employers for bicycle-related expenses. In return, employers will be able to deduct the expense from their federal taxes.
Andy Thornley of the SFBC gets quoted:
“It significantly legitimizes bicycling and elevates it to a credible commute mode, like riding a bus or train,” said Andy Thornley, program director for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
Back in August, we noted that a transit tax break bill proposed by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi would not include a biker benefit. That may or may not have been the case - the language seems a bit confusing, here - but it seems like Mirkarimi wants to include bicyclists:
Mirkarimi hopes to add the new fringe benefit for bicyclists as an acceptable alternative.
And if you get a tax break for your Caltrain or BART commuting, you may not be able to take advantage of the biker benefit at the same time:
The federal bike bill would not allow participants to tap into both the transit credit and the bike reimbursement.
Many transportation-related blogs have reported the bicycle commuter tax break uncritically. Fortunately for us, leading bicycle news reporting outfit, BikePortland.org, has addressed serious concerns about the final bailout bill, even noting that the author of the Bike Commuter Act, Earl Blumenauer, opposed the final bill.
Jonathan Maus, who runs BikePortland.org, said this in a recent Times article:
“It’s a totally weird, ironic political situation,” Mr. Maus said. “It’s a pretty small victory. But this gives a lot of people around the country the ability to walk into their human resources office or their manager’s office and ask for the credit. It helps move the conversation forward.”
Proponents of the passage of this bailout bill say that it was this or nothing — clearly a false dichotomy, as evidenced by the rejection of the initial version of the bill. Whether the $850 billion version is better or worse than the initial version may be up for debate, but it is clear that they are, in fact, two different bills with different consequences, and that it was not a ‘this or nothing’ situation. In the end we got a different version of the bill - hopefully a better one. The rejected version had no tax break for bicycle commuters — the passed version did.
And now it is conceivable, if not yet likely, that further bailouts will be proposed.
Should we Livable Streets advocates now support a tax break for pedestrians? How about skateboarders? For carpoolers and car-sharers? For those who commute by taxi? High-occupancy vehicles? If you believe in the green transportation hierarchy, as do I, then perhaps our answer should be ‘yes’.
It would be unwise for bicycle and livable streets advocates to stop thinking critically about the broader issues facing our society just because we were thrown a bone after seven years. It would be unwise for us to allow our disaffection with the current state of governing affairs to be ameliorated just because we were recipients of one of the bailout’s ’sweeteners’.
If there is a democratic lesson to be learned from this, it is that public pressure - vocal dissent - matters.
Leave comment (0)[p.s. The Forums are open for participation.]
