Campaign idea: Allow salary sacrifice for rail season tickets 🚆✂️

commutersaver

It feels like a glaring omission in UK tax policy that we can salary-sacrifice pensions, childcare, e-bikes and more — but not rail season tickets.

At the moment, if an employer pays for a season ticket or you try to use a salary sacrifice arrangement for one, it’s treated as a taxable benefit and has to be reported and taxed under HMRC rules. 

That’s frustrating because:

• Commuting costs are very high for many people.

• Salary sacrifice already exists for other benefits that help people save money.

• Encouraging more public transport use would help with carbon and congestion goals.

I think this is a perfectly sensible consumer-friendly change — but it doesn’t seem to be on the government’s agenda.

If you agree this should be allowed (and widely available, not just for big employers), please reply! Share your experience with commuting costs, season ticket loans, or current employer travel benefits — and let’s build a case that this should be a MoneySavingExpert campaign or taken up with MPs / campaigners like Martin Lewis.