MSE News: Introduce season ticket tax breaks, Boris Johnson says 7 October 2013 at 12:01PM in Public transport & cycling 30 replies 4.3K views

Former_MSE_Helen

"Boris Johnson says the Treasury should consider a season ticket tax break to reduce travel costs for commuters..."

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Introduce season ticket tax breaks, Boris Johnson says




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marlot

It annoys me that I've got off my backside an do a job 100 miles away, but can't set the commuting costs against tax.

Gentoo365

Good idea. If applicable to all commuters it would also mean less people looking for property in London, as they can remain where they are and commute.

Trains would be even more packed though.

Do it though salary sacrifice.

robertjake9

As a rail commuter of course I am in favour of anything that will reduce my season ticket costs. I can't see it happening though. The Government policy is to reduce the costs of the railways on general taxation and on to the passenger. Johnson's policy would mean that more funding would have to come from general taxation.

wealdroam

Isn't a tax free loan from your employer for an annual season ticket already an option?

NRTurner

As wealdroam says, some employers (including mine!) already offer this for season tickets that are paid for from wage deductions.

For West Yorkshire there's the Corporate MetroCard, and a minimum of 5 eligible employees is all that is needed: https://www.wymetro.com/TicketsAndPasses/moresavings/CompanyMetroCard/

Nick_C

wealdroam wrote: »

Isn't a tax free loan from your employer for an annual season ticket already an option?

A tax free loan allows you buy an annual instead of a weekly or monthly, so saves money. Where I live, an annual to London costs £4228, a weekly costs £105.70, so when you take holidays into account you save about 15% if you can buy an annual.

However, the fact remains that if you are a BR tax payer, you need to earn about £6200 to pay for a £4200 ticket. As this is an unavoidable expense incurred solely for getting to work, it would seem fair to allow tax relief on it through salary sacrifice.

minislim

its ideas like this that would really help people in work!

its about time the government did such things like this that are tied into the wages system and therefore workers could reap the savings.

this indirect was of cutting tax would then be rewarding the hard working! which is something the government have yet to do.

labour haven't come up with anything good to say for the working people of britain. just the usual claptrap about public sector workers.

so for the condems to do something like this would possibly show that they mean business.

aleph_0

minislim wrote: »

its ideas like this that would really help people in work!

But, would it? If it was a simply pay-before-tax, then it would help higher rate taxpayers much more then a lower/basic rate taxpayer (who might not have the job security or cash to buy the season ticket in advance).

Remember, a season ticket works out cheaper per day than walk-up tickets, and the railways are subsidised by the government already.

What would help ordinary workers would be a more flexible ticketing. Part-time season tickets, well-implemented carnets.

pinball13

aleph_0 wrote: »

But, would it? If it was a simply pay-before-tax, then it would help higher rate taxpayers much more then a lower/basic rate taxpayer (who might not have the job security or cash to buy the season ticket in advance).

Quoting Boris: "the relief would only apply at the basic rate".

Transport is my biggest cost after housing so it would help me a lot. It would also encourage people to use public transport rather than drive.:T

aleph_0

pinball13 wrote: »

Quoting Boris: "the relief would only apply at the basic rate".

Transport is my biggest cost after housing so it would help me a lot. It would also encourage people to use public transport rather than drive.:T

Fair enough, I should have spotted that. In that case it just seems a convoluted system to implement on top of already-subsidised season tickets. Given most people with season tickets are likely to be in employment, it would make more sense just to increase the taxpayer contribution to the railways (or, increase taxation on fuel/vehicles and use that to reduce general taxation).

I applaud Boris, it's a very clever move.