[sustran] Car-sharing

[Todd Litman]

Madhav Badami wrote:

>Re: this, the following, from "Harper's Index" in the latest issue of
>Harper's magazine (July 1998), might be of interest: 
>
>
>Maximum business deduction allowed US employers per employee parking space
>they provide: $ 175
>Maximum deduction allowed employers for van-pool or mass-transit expenses,
>per employee: $ 65.
>
>Go figure !
>
>I wonder if anyone can refer me to similar data for other OECD countries.


As you may already know, employee parking is ostensibly fully taxable here
in Canada, but Revenue Canada rules offers exemptions that apply to most
employees (a parking space would need to be leased as a separate
transaction from building rents, and assigned to a particular employee to
be taxed). There is no income tax exemption for employee transit benefits
here. This situation "leverages" employers to offer free parking spaces,
but virtually none offer transit passes. As a result, most urban employees
recieve a benefit worth about $1,750 per year in combined parking subsidies
and tax exemptions, but employees who ride transit recieve nothing. I
believe this is the most  transit unfriendly tax policy of any OECD country.

A large number of environmental, transportation, social equity and urban
government organizations have been lobbying the federal government to
change this policy, but so far we have not been sucesseful.

For more information, see our study "Employer Provided Transit Passes: A
Tax Exempt Benefit; Benefit/Cost Analysis, for The Transit Advocacy Project
of Transport 2000 Canada (Ontario), January 1997. Let me know if you want a
copy.


Sincerely,

Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
E-mail:      litman at islandnet.com
Website:     www.islandnet.com/~litman


At 10:28 AM 7/5/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>Recently, Eric Britton of Ecoplan International raised the issue of
car-sharing.
>
>Re: this, the following, from "Harper's Index" in the latest issue of
>Harper's magazine (July 1998), might be of interest: 
>
>
>Maximum business deduction allowed US employers per employee parking space
>they provide: $ 175
>Maximum deduction allowed employers for van-pool or mass-transit expenses,
>per employee: $ 65.
>
>Go figure !
>
>I wonder if anyone can refer me to similar data for other OECD countries.
>
>Madhav Badami
>
>
>
>Madhav Badami
>UBC Centre for Human Settlements
>2206 East Mall
>Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3
>Canada
>Ph: (604) 822-6081/(604)224-1042
>Fax: (604) 822-6164
>e-mail: <badami at unixg.ubc.ca>
>
>
>