Employer Sponsored - Programs

Did you know that employers get a tax break for people who help alleviate traffic congestion?

Whether you:

• Walk
• Ride a bike
• Car Pool
• Van Pool
• Take the Train, Bus or other Mass Transit System

You could be eligible for special benefits that include monetary compensation, extra tiem off of work, meal coupons, and more.

Ask your HR department for details.

You may even be able to get tax breaks on the money you spend to use those services. You can set up an spending account which gets filled prior to your taxes being taken out of your check. The two main benefits are pretax contributions and it will lower your taxable amount of income.

As an example, say you make $1000 a week, not considering medical and other things for ease of explanation. If you put $50 a week into your rideshare account, you only get taxed on $950. Should you fall into a lower tax bracket (the government takes out less taxes) you get a paycheck that may only be $10-$20 less than what you would have. This is the reason why 401k plans are so popular. It’s all taken out pre-tax.

There’s also other tax sheltered programs you could take advantage of like a health spending account and various other things. Since yu’ll be contacting HR to get information on the rideshare program, why stop there? Take advantage of everything you can.

Depending on the size and location of your company, you could also get discounts on mass transit services. Remember, if your company gets a tax break on helping relieve highway congestion, they are obligated to pass the incentives on to you. In other words, they can’t say that their employees are participating if they aren’t just to receive the tax break. Doing this can get your company into serious trouble, so the employers must offer you these benefits.