Living Car Free - Cycling in the New Energy Bill?

From:
http://washcycle.typepad.com/home/2007/08/bikes-make-a-st.html

"This will allow for employers to offer a tax free $20 per month incentive to employees as part of the Transportation Fringe Benefit. While still a long way off from the $215 per month for parking and $110 per month for transit/vanpooling,.."

This isn't fair. Imagine a car driver considering biking to work, "If I bike to work I'll lose $195 tax free dollars.". Why not the same transport subsidy among all the modes and let the employee decide how to spend it? This unequal treatment seems like a disincentive to going car free.

I think you're thinking about this the wrong way. You get up to a $215/month parking allowance if you DON'T bring your car to work, not the other way around. Your employer is required to give you an allowance if they pay for employee parking and you don't utilize this "benefit".

There's a couple of loopholes in that so-called transportation fringe benefit you could drive a truck through. The primary loophole is that qualified parking is something that can be supplied by the employer.

The way I read it, an employer could charge an employee $215 a month for car parking and deduct that amount from the employee's paycheck on a pretax basis.

Or the employer could install a bike rack, charge up to $20 a month for using it, and deduct that amount from the paycheck on a pretax basis.

I hate to be so cynical about the tax code, but I'm rarely disappointed by what I come across.

There's a couple of loopholes in that so-called transportation fringe benefit you could drive a truck through. The primary loophole is that qualified parking is something that can be supplied by the employer.

The way I read it, an employer could charge an employee $215 a month for car parking and deduct that amount from the employee's paycheck on a pretax basis.

Or the employer could install a bike rack, charge up to $20 a month for using it, and deduct that amount from the paycheck on a pretax basis.

I hate to be so cynical about the tax code, but I'm rarely disappointed by what I come across.
You make it seem like it isn't a benefit to the employee but a tax write off for the employer. HMMM, I used to consult with a company that paid $50 per space for employee parking. They offered me a space but I preferred to bring the bike inside. So the company could take a tax deduction for each space as though it were a part of employee's salary? So by my refusing to take the space I was gumming up their accounting, now with the new energy bill, they could say the place I put my bike under the stairs was a $20 per month payment to me but the $20 bucks never leaves their pockets. My Engineering Economics professor kept telling us to have our own business because as he put it "Americas laws are written for business not for individuals." I didn't know what he meant, the bill of rights seems to address individuals. Every time I go into the details about laws that are supposed to protect workers, I find that the professor was right. Is this another case where a superficial reading makes it seem like its all about employee benefit but when you follow the money the employer comes out ahead?

You make it seem like it isn't a benefit to the employee but a tax write off for the employer. HMMM, I used to consult with a company that paid $50 per space for employee parking. They offered me a space but I preferred to bring the bike inside. So the company could take a tax deduction for each space as though it were a part of employee's salary? So by my refusing to take the space I was gumming up their accounting, now with the new energy bill, they could say the place I put my bike under the stairs was a $20 per month payment to me but the $20 bucks never leaves their pockets. My Engineering Economics professor kept telling us to have our own business because as he put it "Americas laws are written for business not for individuals." I didn't know what he meant, the bill of rights seems to address individuals. Every time I go into the details about laws that are supposed to protect workers, I find that the professor was right. Is this another case where a superficial reading makes it seem like its all about employee benefit but when you follow the money the employer comes out ahead?
What was accomplished is that bicycles are now recognized by that part of the tax code as having some degree of parity with personal motor vehicles for commuters. The maximum leverage you could get from this is being able to say, "Under HR 2776 bicycles are accepted and recognized by the Federal Government as an alternate means for some people to commute to their jobs." That's progress.