03-23-2017, 03:04 PM
(03-23-2017, 02:43 PM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote:(03-23-2017, 01:26 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: But it could control it by providing a direct tax subsidy for buying transit passes, like was already happening. Changing it to be a refundable subsidy, that applied to tickets as well, for example would have made it have broader applications. In that case, the region/city cannot take that income and apply to to the general revenues.
The moment it is a tax refund, it means you have to have the full cost up front, and get refunded it after a year, if all receipts are properly kept. This seems simple, and yet is very much a challenge for people. Trying to make it apply to tickets or cash fares would also be too complex and unwieldy. Even if you could make it work, transit agencies could still use this as "slack" in the system, and boost transit fares/fare recovery by whatever appropriate amount to see you pay the same amount after refund as you had paid with no refund.
They could, but again, because you pay the upfront cost, people wouldn't perceive it this way, people would simply perceive a rate hike. It's very easy to hide money that comes in direct subsidies, much hard to hide diverting a tax rebate.
In any case, I'm not necessarily suggesting that a tax subsidy is the right choice, especially the previous incarnation, I'm simply objecting to the suggestion that the federal government cannot directly subsidize transit costs.