Per Diem question

The net is no where close to the non per diem

 

The per diem is not taxed. Last I knew .08 was the cap on the per diem (tax laws change daily). On your tax form your AGI will look horrible but your pay will even out. The bad part is for your SSI and gross pay for a loan will look bad as the per diem amount is not shown or claimed.

Now an easy break down for you. This is calculated on a 25% tax bracket which you are probably in. I did it at that percentage for ease of understanding.

At .29 per mile with a .10 per diem the net pay is .2425 per mile.
At .34 per mile with no per diem the net pay is .2550 per mile.

 

There are other advantages beyond vacation. And yes perdiem is currently .10 cpm the other two advantages are 1.) Increased safety bonus pay and 2.) 6 paid holidays at $50 per day in addition to cpm that non perdiem does not get.

 

on the per diem pay do you have to claim it on your taxes at years end since no taxes were paid on it

 

No. Per diem is reimbursement for travelling expenses. What it does is make sure you do not need to itemize travelling expense and lowers your taxable income to a lower bracket

 

which one would you recommend? i got to make that choice

 

And is it extra they give you or does it come out of your cpm just not taxed

 

the advantages to this are all to the company, any company that does this. a driver away from home normally gets 59 dollars per day allowed by the irs for daily expense evey day he is away. a quick way to figure is you have to average 590 miles every day you are away for this to even out.

the per diem option basically lets the company use this as a tax write off instead of you, they also have less social security to match, less workmans comp to pay, less unemployment tax to pay. in you get hurt, your workmans comp payments will be lower, your social security disability would be lower, and if unemployment benefits were claimed , they would be lower. plus for a home loan etc you show way less income .

per diem is a win-win for the company and lose lose for the driver, basically you are bent over the fuel tank and hosed.

 

you ever asked yourself why they do that to encourage per diem? , they save way more than that , that's a trick to get you to do it. it the biggest scam ever invented in trucking