In the tax reform search for cash for the winners and money to keep the projected 10-year deficit addition to less than $1.5 trillion, lawmakers created a new tax on the bicycle fringe benefit.

This did not create much money—less than $50 million. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the reform itself is going to add $1.456 trillion to the deficit.1 In comparison, the $50 million is literally too small to measure.

To be fair, lawmakers eliminated other employee transportation fringe benefits and thereby gained $17.7 billion to help pay for the tax reform winners and the projected deficit.2 We will discuss the demise of the transportation fringe in the March issue. Here, we focus on the bicycle.

The bicycle commuting fringe benefit does ... Log in to view full article.