As Fuel Prices Soar, Tiny Rate For Volunteer Mileage Still Tiny – from VolunteerSpot.org.
When VolunteerSpot started our Tiny Cars campaign a little over a month ago to raise awareness of the problem of the tiny volunteer mileage rate (just 14 cents a mile allowed for reimbursements or tax deductions), gas was around $3.39 a gallon – far higher than the $1.30 when the volunteer mileage rate was set in 1997.
Now, just five weeks later, gas is costing an average $3.75 per gallon and is projected to travel well past $4 by May or earlier.
Sadly, there seems to be a threshold for how much of this volunteers can take. In the last couple weeks, news outlets across the country have been highlighting problems for nonprofits unable to staff up their volunteer ranks due to the high cost of driving. Some are losing existing volunteers who, according to news reports, are being forced to choose between food for themselves and gas for their volunteer commitments.
- Fox News: York Non-Profit Feeling the Effects of High Gas Prices (2/23/2012)
- Fox News: Non-profits feeling impact of high gas prices (2/27/2012)
- ABC News: Gas prices put the squeeze on non-profits (2/29/2012)
Congress controls this tiny rate – not the IRS – and only they can take the necessary steps to fix it. The best current legislation in the House only addresses the issue of reimbursement not individual tax deduction – but it does make the rate much better.
Wouldn’t it be great if representatives in Congress seized this opportunity to provide real relief for millions of volunteers (who vote) and join in a painless display of bipartisan cooperation by fixing the Volunteer mileage rate?
Action Suggestion:
Continue to tweet, post, blog and spread the word about TinyCars using hashtag #TinyCars.
