Thank you for posting these numbers. I did my graduate thesis work in ’07/’08 on Transportation Fringe Benefits, and that $3bn in foregone tax revenue was an impossible number to suss out at the time. The data was simply not available, and I was told in no uncertain terms that it would have taken a congressional request to get it. Thank goodness times have changed and parking is now a major focus of transportation and economic debate.

I was able to make a very broad estimation of the value of the foregone tax revenue, however, and found it to be somewhere between $2b and $6b annually. Glad to see I at least captured it in my range. Unsurprisingly, I came up with a recommendation that the parking subsidy should be phased out in order to best situate the costs of driving upon the user, but I was encouraged to add a proviso about the political difficulty of such a change. Now that a more official dollar figure is attached to it, perhaps it will be on the table.

Those amounts were updated for the stimulus bill, with the new $230 deductions available from March:

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=205664,00.html

I have an issue with your presentation, however. The QTFB is not a tax credit, so it doesn’t count 100% as a Federal subsidy. Assuming I have a marginal federal tax rate of 20%, the fact that my $89 monthly metrocard is paid for as a pretax QTFB means that I am foregoing the payment of $213.60 in federal taxes annually. This is not a subsidy of $1,068 like you’re making it out to be.

In addition, as the report says, “One problem with taxing directly supplied fringe benefits, such as free or reduced price parking, is the administrative difficulty in determining fair market value.” So if the cost of free or reduced-price parking is too wishy-washy for the IRS to determine, how can you, Elana, take Pew’s numbers at face value?