Commuter rail and Transit Benefits

Keep commuter rail and transit benefit on equal footing with driving!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

[Update: the Washington Post is reporting that “pretax parking benefits would rise from $230 a month to $240 a month because of inflation.” ; last edited December 14]

Our partners over at Transportation For America have pointed out something that has slipped by mostly unnoticed in the larger conversation about transportation funding for fiscal year 2012: a transit benefit that provides a tax credit for workers who use mass-transit to commute is set to be nearly halved come this January.

Currently, the annual mass-transit benefit is the same as the tax break commuters receive for parking costs, thanks to a provision introduced by the Recovery Act in 2009.  This provision was extended last winter, but will expire at the end of December if no action is taken by Congress.

From T4A’s website:

[If] you take transit to get to work each day you could be paying more out of your own pocket when the tax benefit for transit is cut in half. If that wasn’t enough, drivers will keep enjoying the same great parking benefit ($230) – nearly double what transit commuters will be eligible to receive. We don’t think that’s fair, and Congress needs to hear about it.

So if you spend more than $120 a month on your commute in a vanpool, train or bus, the federal government will be sending a message loud and clear: they’d like you to start driving to work, where you can get $230 for parking deducted from your paycheck tax free.

This is another example of the double standard that exists when it comes to trains and transit versus roads and highways.  Money spent on the former is a “subsidy,” while money spent on the latter is an “investment.”  It’s entirely unacceptable for our nation’s leaders to incentivize people to move away from a mode of transportation that saves energy, lowers harmful emissions, reduces commuter congestion, and decreases America’s dependence on foreign oil.

T4A is hosting a campaign to tell Senators to support an extension of the worker transit benefit, and NARP encourages you to take a few minutes to support this effort.

Already, a bipartisan group of 22 Senators has signed onto a letter calling for the extension to be enacted.

“Eliminating the mass-transit credit would take a cut out of the paychecks of hardworking middle-class families trying to get by in an already tough economy,” said Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), who serves in the Senate Finance Committee. “Promoting the use of mass transit helps our workers but it also helps reduce traffic congestion on our region’s highways and improve air quality by taking thousands of cars off the road.”