Press Releases

Tax Savings for Commuters Boost Transit Pass Sales

CONTACT:

Robert Huang
510.817.3262

Joe Curley
510.817.5847

OAKLAND, Calif., Aug. 26, 1999. . . Bay Area employees and employers are buying vouchers to pay for transit trips and commuter vanpool expenses in record numbers. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), sales of Commuter Check® vouchers in the first seven months of 1999 totaled $8.4 million, double the amount sold in the same period of 1998.

From January through July 1999, nearly 300,000 Commuter Checks were sold, compared to 157,000 in the same period last year. In addition, 273 more companies joined the program, bringing to nearly 2,000 the number of Bay Area employers offering Commuter Checks to their employees.

The surge is attributed to a 1998 federal law that expanded the benefits of the Commuter Check program. Under the law, workers can deduct up to $65 a month from their pre-tax salaries to pay for monthly transit passes or vanpool costs, or companies can pay up to $65 a month for employees' transit/vanpool expenses as a tax-free benefit on top of existing wages.

If an employer pays for all or part of an employee's monthly Commuter Checks, the benefit is like a tax-free raise, since Commuter Checks are not subject to federal, state or local taxes. At the same time, the employer can claim the expense as a business deduction for tax purposes.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) recently joined Commuter Check, and according to Sanchi Fernandez, MOMA director of human resources, "The program is a big hit with our staff, since many of us commute to downtown by public transit. Our employees are very happy with the money they save – which is considerable, especially when you annualize it." Thirty percent of the museum's regular staff signed up for the benefit when it was introduced less than two months ago, and more are expected to take advantage of the perk when it is made available again in November.

"More and more companies are seeing that it makes good economic and business sense to offer Commuter Check as an employee benefit," said Robert Huang, MTC transit marketing manager. "It's a win-win situation."

For information on enrolling in Commuter Check, call TravInfo™, the Bay Area's traveler information system, at 817-1717 and press option 3, or log on to:<http://www.commutercheck.com>. This Web site also features a tax-savings calculator so employers and employees can see exactly what their savings will be.

MTC, which sponsors the Commuter Check program in the Bay Area, is the transportation, planning, coordinating and financing agency for the nine-county region.

-30-

Previous | Contents | Next