05-27-2021, 04:43 PM
(05-27-2021, 12:00 PM)tomh009 Wrote: It's one more step than today. And one more step than with property taxes. If today's scheme isn't illegal, I don't see why this should be.
I suspect the real problem here is the challenge with the access to income data: without it, it's really hard to do graduated discounts effectively.
While it's far from perfect, this is still much better than the current scheme, at least in my bopinion.
If they can verify a person’s income is under $X they can use the annual income in a calculation that determines the discount in a more appropriate and fair way.
I understand that there are people, not well off, who face a 100% marginal tax rate when all income supports programs are taken into account. In other words, if they earn another dollar it will be taxed at 100%. This is even worse than that: earn one more dollar, lose the entire transit discount.
I know it’s slightly easier to run this program this way, but bureaucratic convenience just doesn’t make it acceptable.