entremet
Member
Not a new problem, but an annoying one: The federal tax code encourages companies to provide free parking to their employees by exempting the fringe benefit from taxation. That means the government is subsidizing commuters to drive themselves to work instead of carpooling or taking mass transit or walking or biking or working from home.
The tax break promotes traffic congestion and eats up parking spaces. Its worth the most to the people in the highest tax brackets. And its worth the most in places where parking is the costliestthat is, the places where congestion is the biggest problem.
Plus, of course, the tax break is money that the government doesnt collect that could have been used to reduce other taxes or fund other programs.
A new report from TransitCenter, a foundation that says it works to improve urban mobility, calculates that the parking benefit is worth up to $1,000 a year for commuters who are in high tax brackets and work in big cities. Collectively, it calculates, the break costs $7.3 billion a year in lost tax revenue.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-their-cars?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business
It also said that those who come into work via rideshares, mass transit, and bikes are more energized and refreshed.