Senate Tax Reform Bill to Eliminate Bike Commuter Benefit

[cvcalhoun]

Well, if getting rid of the bicycle commuting benefit causes people to become less healthy, they will deal with that by eliminating the deduction for medical expenses. So it’s all good.

[Judd]

@cvcalhoun 167899 wrote:

Well, if getting rid of the bicycle commuting benefit causes people to become less healthy, they will deal with that by eliminating the deduction for medical expenses. So it’s all good.

I did include in my feedback that the bicycle commuter benefit encouraged an activity that results in lower federal healthcare and road maintenance expenses.

[DismalScientist]

The tax reform bill also eliminates parking benefits. It’s amazing how supposed bike advocates can be so easily swayed by eliminating very minor social engineering project. Bicycling commuting should not be subsidized independent of other commuting subsidies.

[cvcalhoun]

@DismalScientist 167908 wrote:

The tax reform bill also eliminates parking benefits. It’s amazing how supposed bike advocates can be so easily swayed by eliminating very minor social engineering project. Bicycling commuting should not be subsidized independent of other commuting subsidies.

I would argue that it should. We already subsidize driving, because we allow emissions that we then need to find a way to clean up. Road construction is also more necessary for cars than for bikes, because cars a) are bigger and take up more space, and b) are heavier and damage roads more. Driving instead of bicycling increases healthcare costs, of which the government pays a part. So if a minor subsidy gets more people out of cars, it is a net gain to the government, in a way that a parking subsidy (which encourages yet more use of cars) is not.

Overall, I consider the bike commuting benefit one of the least objectionable parts of the bill. (Taxing people on discounts in their college tuition, and increasing taxes on those in long-term care, are obviously a lot more significant, for example.) However, equating parking benefits with bicycling benefits seems to me an unfair comparison.

[Dewey]

What a pain in the proverbial. AU and NIH have implemented it and I had gotten consideration on the agenda of the next budget meeting of our HR Benefits people.

[peterw_diy]

@cvcalhoun 167935 wrote:

equating parking benefits with bicycling benefits seems to me an unfair comparison.

Instead of freaking out about removing the modest bike reimbursement provision, you should celebrate the elimination of the parking benefit. See this: https://la.streetsblog.org/2017/09/15/america-spends-7-3-billion-a-year-paying-affluent-people-to-drive-to-work/comment-page-1/

If parking benefits are provided, the other transit benefits have virtually no effect on commuting mode share. If you want to increase cycling’s mode share, decrease roadway maintenance and medical costs, it’s far more important to kill the parking subsidy than to preserve the tedious to use and seldom adopted bike expense subsidy.

(I’d like to see analysis of the impact of human powered commuting on group medical costs. I expect that cycling to work frequently vs. driving might reduce group medical costs enough to justify the < $20 month subsidy even without the tax break - that the bike subsidy might be one of the most cost-effective wellness programs an employer could adopt.)

[cvcalhoun]

@peterw_diy 167962 wrote:

Instead of freaking out about removing the modest bike reimbursement provision, you should celebrate the elimination of the parking benefit.

I’m hardly freaking out about the loss of the biking benefit. I’ve already pointed out that compared with the other horrors in the bill, it’s trivial. All I said was that saying that of course the biking benefit should go if the parking benefit does makes no sense. The biking benefit, if effective, reduces driving. The parking benefit (whatever its other purposes, such as taking away one reason employers flee to the suburbs) potentially increases it.

I don’t have strong feelings about either benefit. I doubt the trivial biking benefit does much to encourage biking. I think the effects of the parking benefit are mixed — potentially helping to retain jobs in the city, but also potentially increasing driving. But regardless of whether each of these changes is good or bad, there are far more important issues with this bill.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[peterw_diy]

@cvcalhoun 167964 wrote:

I’m hardly freaking out about the loss of the biking benefit

Very true. I’m sorry for my choice of words.

[dbb]

@cvcalhoun 167964 wrote:

I doubt the trivial biking benefit does much to encourage biking.

While the $20/month may not directly encourage biking, it may cause employers to engage on how to make their operations more bike friendly, which may directly encourage biking. By giving some visibility to bicyclists in an organization, we increase their voice.

[chris_s]

@DismalScientist 167908 wrote:

The tax reform bill also eliminates parking benefits. It’s amazing how supposed bike advocates can be so easily swayed by eliminating very minor social engineering project. Bicycling commuting should not be subsidized independent of other commuting subsidies.

I believe you’re thinking of the House Bill. My understanding is the House version kills them all, the Senate version ONLY kills the bike benefit.

[DismalScientist]

A large point of the tax reform bill is to get rid of most deductions and other social engineering projects through the tax code. I don’t specifically know what in either the senate or house versions. It’s no like either has passed. Certainly, everyone fighting for every trivial provision in the tax code does not portend well for citizens ever being freed from social engineering of our elected superiors.

[dbb]

@DismalScientist 167988 wrote:

A large point of the tax reform bill is to replace social engineering projects in the tax code with different social engineering projects in the tax code.

ftfy

[DismalScientist]

Such as ( other than changing the relative rates between capital and labor)?

[huskerdont]

You can call it social engineering all you want, and it is that too, but it’s also encouraging reductions in air pollution and reducing traffic congestion, in addition to whatever the health benefits might be. And there are many of us who believe that this is exactly what government should be doing, rather than, e.g., projecting our military in non-defense operations on foreign shores at great expense and human cost.

This isn’t tax reform, unless reverse Robin Hood is reform; it’s a tax cut for the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the rest of us. The biking benefit is minor, but getting rid of it is an extra, intentional slap in the face to all those “liberal snowflakes who need a handout from government.” It doesn’t save the government any money to speak of; it’s just symbolic. This congress and this president are there to take care of the well off who feel like they have been persecuted. It is they who are getting the handout and being subsidized by the rest of us.

/Monday morning rant

[mstone]

@peterw_diy 167962 wrote:

Instead of freaking out about removing the modest bike reimbursement provision, you should celebrate the elimination of the parking benefit.

A far more likely outcome is that the parking benefit will be restored but the biking benefit will be left out. Because fiscal responsibility. Or some such lying bullshit.

[Author]

Posts