Chuck Schumer Proposes Making Bike-Share Memberships Tax Deductible

If you drive to work, the IRS allows you to pay for parking with pre-tax money. Same goes if you take the train or the bus (though transit commuters can’t claim as much tax-free earnings as car commuters). People who ride their own bikes are also eligible to deduct some associated costs. But if you get to work using Citi Bike, Divvy, Nice Ride, or any of the other bike-share systems sprouting up in American cities, you get no such assistance from Uncle Sam.

Those to use bike share to commute to work may soon be eligible for the same tax benefits everyone else receives. Photo: Steven Vance
People who ride bike-share to work may soon be eligible for tax benefits like other commuters. Photo: Steven Vance

New York Senator Chuck Schumer wants to change that by treating bike-share memberships like other commuting costs. Schumer plans to add an amendment to a Senate package of tax benefit extensions that would specifically list bike-share memberships as an eligible expense for transportation fringe benefits.

“Bike share programs are an efficient, healthy, and clean form of mass transportation, and they should be treated the same way under the tax code as we treat car and mass transit commuters,” he said in a statement yesterday.

The amendment would allow commuters to deduct up to $20 per month in bike-share expenses from their taxable income, the same as regular bike commuters. That would make the entire cost of an annual bike-share membership tax-deductible. Chicago’s Divvy, for instance, is prices at $75 per year, NYC’s Citi Bike costs $95, and at the very high end of the spectrum, Deco Bike in Miami Beach costs $150. For commuters, a low-cost transportation option could become an even better bargain.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Blumenauer Introduces a Tax Break for Bike-Share Commuters

|
If you drive to work, the feds will subsidize that. But if a Citi Bike (New York), or a Divvy bike (Chicago), or CoGo (Columbus, Ohio) is your ride to work, no such luck. But that could change. Michael Andersen at Bike Portland reports that Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) has introduced legislation that would establish tax incentives […]

How Can We Make Bike Commuting “Normal”?

|
Lots of blogs around the Streetsblog Network are tackling issues related to bike commuting this week in honor of the upcoming Bike to Work Day on Friday. Baltimore Spokes weighs in with a post about how employers can tailor workplaces to encourage employees to ride in. Here are a few of their ideas: Inside the […]

Chuck Schumer: America Needs More Streets Like Prospect Park West

|
Senator Chuck Schumer broke his long public silence on the redesigned Prospect Park West in dramatic fashion this morning, leading members of Congress on a two-wheeled tour of the physically separated bike lane that runs past his Brooklyn home. Schumer used the occasion to announce that he’ll be introducing new legislation to promote investment in […]