Learning to cycle again: Examining the benefits of providing tax-free loans to purchase new bicycles

In 2009, the Irish government introduced a tax relief scheme whereby employees could purchase a bicycle through their employer. The motivation for introducing this scheme was to encourage workers to cycle to work on a regular basis and to promote sustainable transport. Under the scheme the employer purchases a bicycle and accessories up to the value of €1,000 for the employee and deducts the cost from the employee's salary over a 12 month period. The deduction is from the before-tax salary leading to savings of up to 51% for the employee. The main contribution of this research is to show how individuals who haven't owned a bicycle in the past five years, have changed their perceptions of cycling and improved accessibility to the bicycles and cycling after using this scheme.