Bill would offer temporary tax credits to truck drivers

Citing the “driver shortage” as its motivation, a bill has been introduced that would give tax credits to truck drivers who qualify.

Last week, Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, reintroduced the Strengthening Supply Chains Through Truck Driver Incentives Act. The bill would create a refundable tax credit of up to $7,500 for current truckers who drive at least 1,900 hours a year. It also would establish an enhanced tax credit of up to $10,000 for new truck drivers and individuals in trucking apprenticeship programs.

The tax credit would last only two years and would be available only to those who fall under certain income thresholds. The full bill text can be found here.

“Right now, we’re facing a serious shortage of truck drivers, and it’s putting pressure on Iowa families and our nation’s supply chains,” Nunn said in a news release. “We are experiencing both a recruitment and a retention problem in the trucking industry. This is a simple fix to help get more drivers behind the wheel – improving our supply chain and bringing down costs for every Iowan.”

However, multiple studies in recent years have debunked the driver shortage claim. Plus, the trucking industry has been in a freight recession since 2022 and has been suffering from a persistent overcapacity issue.

What large fleets call a “driver shortage” is said to actually be a truck driver turnover problem that stems from low pay and poor working conditions.

The most recent report refuting claims of a driver shortage can be found in the 2024 National Academies of Science’s driver pay study.

Assertions of a driver shortage conflict with the basic economic principles of supply and demand, the study said.

In 2023, economics professor Stephen V. Burks and colleagues published a study showing that there is not a driver shortage. A few years before that, the U.S. Department of Labor also published a study that found there wasn’t a shortage. Instead, the department said that any issues in the labor supply could be corrected by increasing wages.

The Strengthening Supply Chains Through Truck Driver Incentives Act was introduced in the previous two legislative sessions. The 2023 version of the bill garnered only seven co-sponsors. LL