Bailout provided passage of Bicycle Commuter bill

[Trek420]

Probably not

But you don't have co-workers snide comments about your shoes, and managers question if you can bring the bike into the building and ...

That's worth $20.00 a month.

[TahoeDirtGirl]

I saw this and did a Scooby Doo double take. They were making fun of some of the other piggy back bills like the wooden arrow one for kids and they mentioned the bike one but didn't make fun of it.

Maybe this would convince some employers to put in showers? I thought at first I would be able to write it off. Which would of been better. Will there be employers that use this falsely? I hope not. I wish tho the biker got the cash.

[carpaltunnel]

I think it's like a flex plan. If the employee pays for it, the employee can pay with "pre-tax" dollars through a fund administered by the employer. If the employer pays for it, the employer takes a tax deduction.

[Tuckervill]

Pays for WHAT?

I think it's just a tax incentive to get employers to encourage bike commuting. If you work in a big city where parking is scarce, and your employer puts a bike rack or showers in to encourage bike commuting, or the HR department launches an awareness campaign, the EMPLOYER gets to take a $20 a month tax credit per bike-commuting employee.

I don't know how they'd prove how many bike commute, AND what if I commute only part time? And what kind of trouble would a company in the 'burbs of Dallas go to to claim the credit when they know almost all of the employees are driving? Sounds to me like an entrance into regulating bike commuting, licensing bikes, and riders, etc., etc. That's bad news to me.

Karen

[madscot13]

so obviously it is full of loop holes and lacks any direction or responsibility. huh I wonder if the rest of the bail out plan is like that. yay for poor government management of our lives!

[tulip]

Public transit incentives like this are very common. I think this is a good start that will likely need tweaking and improvement, but it's a start and that's a whole lot better than we've ever had before. Let's not trash the whole program; I certainly don't know the details.

[sfa]

What if you work for a non-profit that doesn't file taxes? We have one employee who is in charge of all of the campus "green" projects and is very supportive of bicycle commuting, but we/he can't find the money to get a bike rack installed at the fitness center (where I go to shower and change). This kind of tax credit could help pay for something like that.

Sarah