Pre-Tax Payroll Deduction Policies

Per federal law, eligible employees may use up to $600 pre-tax dollars for their own transportation costs to commute to and from work—$300 per month in parking expenses and $300 per month in transit and vanpool expenses.

Employees should observe the following policies and be advised that transit passes or parking permits purchased via pre-tax payroll deduction may NOT be purchased for or transferred to other individuals. Additional restrictions apply.


Employee responsibilities

  • Monitoring payments: Employees are responsible for monitoring their paychecks to ensure that proper deductions are being made for their purchases.

  • Missed payments: Participants are liable for missed payments, including in instances when an employee does not receive a paycheck during the pay period in which a deduction is scheduled. If you will miss a payment for any reason, contact Stanford Transportation.

Cancellations, exchanges and returns

  • Previous deductions: Changes may not be made to deductions already made.

  • Parking pass cancellations:

    • Valid long term permits must be returned to Stanford Transportation by the end of the current month to avoid charges for the next month’s deduction. For example, if a permit is returned Jan. 5, payments will stop Feb. 1.

    • Unused permits: There will be no refunds for the unused portion of the current month’s permit or for unused daily permits.

    • For more information, visit our Permit Cancellation Policy/Return Policy page.

       

  • Transit pass and commuter benefits cancellations, returns, and exchanges:

    • Cancellations: Orders must be canceled through the Pre-Tax Transit and Commuter Benefits Portal by the 9th of the month for the next month's order to be cancelled. For example, You would have to cancel your order by February 9th to stop an order for March. If you submit your cancellation on Feb. 20, in this example, the cancellation would take effect in April. 

    • No refunds, returns or exchanges: Transit passes, Clipper cash and transit parking cannot be refunded, returned or exchanged, even if you don’t use them.  If you have cash value on your Clipper card or Mastercard, the value does not expire.

    • For further information, please refer to the Pre-Tax Transit and Commuter Benefits page.

 

Once your transit pass or transit parking pass is mailed, Stanford Transportation and/or Edenred are NOT responsible if it gets lost. If you do not receive your pass in the mail, please contact Edenred immediately at 888.235.9223 and submit a support ticket. 

Effect on Social Security

Since this program has the general effect of lowering a participant’s taxable income (as reported on Form W-2), Social Security benefits may be reduced for certain participants (i.e., those who do not reach the annual FICA wage cap). Stanford-provided benefits will not be affected.

Other Information

Administration

Stanford Transportation administers the Pre-Tax Transportation Program. Stanford Transportation reserves the right to request any information it deems necessary to determine that the requirements of the program have been or will be met. Stanford Transportation also reserves the right to deny participation in the program if more than one scheduled deduction is missed.

Status and Duration of the Program

This program is intended to provide benefits excluded from taxation under U.S. Internal Revenue Code Section 132(f) and California Revenue and Taxation Code Section 17149 (and/or other applicable laws). The program may be changed at any time by the University to effectuate or maintain compliance with these or other such laws. The University also reserves the right to modify this program in any other respect, or discontinue this program, at any time. This program is not governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).

For more information on federal regulations regarding pre-tax dollars used for personal transportation, refer to the “Qualified Transportation Fringe Benefits (QTF)” section of the “Fringe Benefit Guide” on the Internal Revenue Service’s website.

 

Further questions? University employees can also call the Stanford Commute Club at 650.736.9923, and Hospital employees can call Hospital Transportation Services at 650.736.8000.