I’m not sure if independent car services are required to follow the same requirements, but according to TLC rules a taxi driver or company can be fined for charging a passenger more than the discounted E-Z Pass rate. Also, a minor nitpick, the discount for every tunnel in New York City, afaik, is actually $0.50.
Keeve and SuaSponte those are decent answers to my query. I am still not convinced that this is really a legitimate expenses to bill to the client.
I am not quite sure how your practice is run. Lawyers I am familiar with have a variety of things to do for different clients. It seems to me that the client should be not be billed extra just because the firm loads up the lawyers’ dockets with overtime just to keep up the billable hours. You bill the client for billable hours and expenses that relate to case not just because you want to have one guy do work for two clients.
Well, it’s legitimate because it is part of the bargained-for agreement between my firm and the client. It’s not hidden from the client in any way. It is simply part of the cost we charge a client, and the client is free to go to another firm, or to try to bargain away the car service expense.
Sua
i see no problem with this. the EZPass is just a product, purchased by a vender(the driver) at a discount and you (or your firm) are paying fair market value for it. the extra $1 is markup.
if you went to a supermarket and expected to pay only what they paid for a product, news! you leave empty handed!
if they tried to stick you for $4.00 for a toll, that would be a rip, but at $3.50, you are getting what you pay for, mainly a trip thru the toll plaza.
i’m sure it better than driving yourself around anyway! (me? i cant live without at least 4-5 cars and a handfull of motorcycles! closest thing to a toll we have in my neck of the woods is having to honk at the wildlife standing in the road to get it to move!)
FYI:
The EZPass discount is fifty cents and not one dollar for the tolls on the Tri-boro, Whitestone, Throgs Neck, Queens Midtown, Brookln Battery. You pay $3.00 with the tag, $3.50 without the tag.
I friend of mine took a cab from the Bronx to Queens, and was charged $7.00 extra for the toll i.e. going and coming, though the driver could opt to take a route without a toll on his way back to the city, if in fact that would have been the destination. The driver could have picked up a fare from Queens to Manhattan and that passenger would probably be charged $7.00 as well.
I don’t see what the ethical problem is. That the law firm bills out to clients is irrelevant, since the car company doesn’t have anything to do with that, the issue is between the law firm and car company. The car company has made a deal that you’ll pay a standard amount for bridge tolls, but has also made a deal with the bridge service to pay lower rates. As long as they are upfront about this (that is, they say ‘you’ll pay X to cross the bridge’ and not ‘you’ll pay what we pay to cross the bridge’), then they’ve simply entered into a contract. The law firm may want to renegotiate the contract, but I really don’t see anything unethical about the situation.