Robin, There are no plans at this time to offer The Bicycle Commuter Tax Benefit to UW Employees, in part because the way the law was written, an employer cannot provide both the bicycle commuter tax benefit AND a benefit for transit in the same month. We provide around 14,000 ANNUAL bus passes each year (they are available to any eligible UW employee who wants one), and the law doesn't allow us to provide a bicycle tax benefit to those employees who have a bus pass. Since the bus pass is worth about $55/month, and the Bicycle tax benefit is only $20/month, so far no one has asked us to provide a bicycle tax benefit in lieu of a bus pass. And it would require a change in the way we distribute bus passes (from annually to monthly) that may not be feasible in the short term, nor desirable by those using the passes.
Another obstacle is cost. There is no benefit to the employer, only to the employee. So if the responses to our 2007 Transportation Survey are a good estimate, and all of the estimated 2315 Faculty and Staff (including Hospital employees) who bicycle in good weather received the benefit even six months a year, it would cost about $278,000 annually. That could possibly be offset by reduced cost of bus passes not provided for six months of the year to some people, IF we find a feasible way to distribute passes on something less than an annual basis, and IF all those who receive the bicycle tax benefit are giving up a bus pass to do so (it is also possible that bicyclists who do not currently receive a bus pass would receive the bicycle tax benefit, meaning increased costs for one benefit without a reduction in our cost to provide the other). Everything we currently know about the Bicycle Commuter Tax Benefit is available on our website at http://www2.fpm.wisc.edu/trans/alt_bicycling_commuter_benefits.asp, which includes this link to the League of American Bicyclists page about it: http://www.bikeleague.org/news/100708faq.php Congressman Earl Blumenauer and others are working to amend the bill, and if that happens, we'll update our website and revisit the issue, but the amendment proposed by Rep Blumenauer to the Ways and Means Committee in February of this year hasn't made it out of that committee so far. Chuck Strawser University of Wisconsin-Madison Transportation Services UW Commuter Solutions Pedestrian/Bicycle Coordinator 124 WARF bldg 610 Walnut Street Madison WI 53726 608-263-2969 www.wisc.edu/trans -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robin Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 3:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Bikies] Fed Tax Credit Curious, 2009 is the first chance to get the Federal tax credit for bicycle commuting, but as far as I can tell the UW/State of WI, pretty much any business large or small has figured out how to handle it... anybody? I wants my commuter credit! R. -- Pointlessly blogging at www.robindavies.us Try something new every day. _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
