this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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In the US, the majority live in a place where having a car is all but mandatory. People don't know any different and are sold propaganda that anything else is of the boogeyman of the day. So when people want bike infrastructure, transit, zoning changes, etc, they freak out.
Even as someone that can no longer ride a bike (disabled), I would be THRILLED with better bike infrastructure and essential businesses closer together. (Those big parking lots were such a pain when I only walked.)
Before I could afford a car, every time I had a complaint about how I couldn't get around, it seemed the answer was always "work hard and get a car." Our public transportation sucked bad, it was plain not safe to ride a bike, and walking was impossible in some areas.
I really hate that I live in a city but something like buying a gallon of milk requires a car (or delivery). It's pretty ingrained into us as a culture and I really only saw it for myself when I was destitute and had to get by without most things people had. Many of those things were doable but not having a car really screwed me over. It shouldn't be like this, but when I bring it up, my peers roll their eyes at me. Aaaaargh.
IIRC, the only way to get a tax break for owning a car in the US is if you do a hack of not driving straight to work but you stop somewhere for coffee then drive to work. Something about multiple stops being a loophole. But is that loophole being abused on a notable scale?
There’s also a loophole in the US where if you rent a car instead of buy one, there are some shenanigans that enable a simple commuter to write it off. But again, I don’t think that’s being abused on a large scale.
Europe is quite loose with the car write-offs. The car just has to be company-owned and from there it can be used simply for commuting to and from an office. So you have a phenomenon where a majority of cars are company cars being used for personal errands.
You don't get a tax break for personal vehicles. If you use it for business purposes for a business you operate (i.e. own), you can claim it as a business expense.
Cars are subsided by our zoning, minimum parking requirements, and car centric transport infrastructure.
Where are you talking about? Your first paragraph sounds like Europe, but your second paragraph sounds like the US.
That's how it is in the US?
Since you said “car centric transport infrastructure”, and zoning, that really sounded like the US. The US has some really fucked up zoning that forces commercial buildings to be separated from residential zones, which forced the norm of driving cars to work. Europe allows homes and businesses to intermingle. In fact, it’s common for a ground floor shop to have residential dwellings on the floors above it.