PeopleForBikes Reaction to Senate Vote to Eliminate Popular Bike Tax Benefit

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Bikers in a bike lane.
Bikers in a bike lane.

UPDATE:

On December 15, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate released their conference report on reconciling the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The final conference agreement eliminates the qualified bicycle commuting reimbursements. PeopleForBikes supporters sent 3,500 letters to members of Congress in all 50 states, asking that this $20-per-month tax benefit be included in the final version of the bill.

Both chambers of Congress will vote on tax reform this week, where it is expected to pass.

Details can be found here, on pages 93-94.

On December 2, the U.S. Senate voted to eliminate the $20 per-month tax benefit available for those who bike to work while maintaining the $255 per-month vehicle and parking benefit.

“What is the Senate thinking? Why single out a modest incentive that encourages people to bike to work, increasing community health and reducing congestion, while maintaining a significantly larger and more expensive incentive for people to drive?” said Tim Blumenthal, President of PeopleForBikes. “We encourage the conference committee to include this popular and common sense bike tax benefit as the House did in its version of the bill.”

PeopleForBikes spearheaded a letter from bike industry leaders calling on both the Senate and House to maintain the bike tax benefit and also joined a coalition of 20 national organizations in support of the tax benefit. You can see the full text of the letter here.

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