Bike Commuters and Tax info

It's under the what's new section for 2009

"Transportation fringe benefit to bicycle commuters. The qualified employer transportation fringe benefit is expanded to include any qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement made after 2008."
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p525/ar01.html#en_US_publink100070319

2009 bike commutting rules
"Publication 15-B - Main Content

Qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement. For any calendar year, the exclusion for qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement includes any employer reimbursement during the 15-month period beginning with the first day of the calendar year for reasonable expenses incurred by the employee during the calendar year.

Reasonable expenses include:
The purchase of a bicycle and

Bicycle improvements, repair, and storage.

These are considered reasonable expenses as long as the bicycle is regularly used for travel between the employee's residence and place of employment.

Employee. For this exclusion, treat the following individuals as employees.
A current employee.

A leased employee who has provided services to you on a substantially full-time basis for at least a year if the services are performed under your primary direction or control.

A self-employed individual is not an employee for qualified transportation benefits.

Exception for S corporation shareholders. Do not treat a 2% shareholder of an S corporation as an employee of the corporation for this purpose. A 2% shareholder is someone who directly or indirectly owns (at any time during the year) more than 2% of the corporation's stock or stock with more than 2% of the voting power. Treat a 2% shareholder as you would a partner in a partnership for fringe benefit purposes, but do not treat the benefit as a reduction in distributions to the 2% shareholder.

Relation to other fringe benefits. You cannot exclude a qualified transportation benefit you provide to an employee under the de minimis or working condition benefit rules. However, if you provide a local transportation benefit other than by transit pass or commuter highway vehicle, or to a person other than an employee, you may be able to exclude all or part of the benefit under other fringe benefit rules (de minimis, working condition, etc.).

Exclusion from wages. You can generally exclude the value of transportation benefits that you provide to an employee during 2009 from the employee's wages up to the following limits.
$120 per month for combined commuter highway vehicle transportation and transit passes.

$230 per month for qualified parking.

$20 per qualified bicycle commuting month.

as always, i'm not the expert, please check www.irs.gov

every little bit counts