Cashing Out Employer-Paid Parking

摘要

Employer-paid parking is an invitation to drive to work alone. Thus, it increases traffic congestion, air pollution, and energy consumption. To deal with the problems created by employer-paid parking, the study proposes a minor technical change in the Internal Revenue Code. The proposal is that employers who subsidize employee parking should be required to offer employees the option to take a taxable cash travel allowance equal to the fair market value of the parking subsidy. Case studies and a statistical model suggest that offering employees the option to cash out their parking subsidies could reduce solo driving to work by 20 percent.