Per Diem is Great...

A couple of thoughts about per diem. First, in order to deduct the per diem meals and incidental expenses (M&IE), you will have to itemize your deductions if you are an employee. Owner/operators claim them as an expense against income received.

If you're an employee and have substantial per diem expenses you could be in the awkward position of having legitimate tax deductions but receiving little, or no, benefit from them because they are not deductible for AMT (alternative minimum tax) purposes. That happens fairly often where your spouse also works and you are in a highly-taxed state such as NY, CA, NJ, etc.

Those of you who put in long days but return home the same day will likely not get any per diem. The Courts have also ruled, and it is also the IRS position, that you must have enough of a break for a "substantial rest or sleep" in order to qualify as "away from home" for a per diem M&IE.

If you would like to read more about this take a look at Rev. Rul. 75-168, Bissonnette v. Commissioner and United States v. Correll. Just google any of them. Rev. Rul. 75-168 was specifically about a trucker and it is only a two-page read.

 

NO you do NOT have to itemize your deductions on per diem. If you leave home at 12:00 noon and return home 2 weeks later you get all of those days. The last day if you got home after 6PM I count it as I ate away from home several times. This is what used to be called the 3 martinis lunch that the Democrats had Clinton cut way back until the ATA got them to realize that most truckers were filing under the rule so Clinton gave it back but at a stupid little amount a year till it got back to where it used to be! Darn I miss those 3 martinis for lunch! ROFL!

Your log book is all you need. It's a PITA to try to itemize all of your receipts. With these heat printers the receipts fade in about a year so and if you get audited the auditor is going to look at a lot of blank or nearly so receipts! Why bother as you come out better counting days over the cost of the receipts.

Other deductions YES you will need to itemize like cell bills, authorized clothing (you can ONLY claim company required clothing like uniforms BUT OSHA required safety shores or boots are deductible.

Ink pens, log books, work gloves, OOP fuel, scales and parts that the company refused to pay, your CB and equipment and ad nausea!

Just count each day you were away from home and write it down on the first page and keep them in a big envelope!

Your accountant will let you know what you can and can't deduct. But get one who actually knows how to file for a truck driver!

 

Anyone need a great tax guy that is a trucker PM me. He has been trucking for 25 years, the last 5 as O/O. He's been doing trucker taxes as a paid preparer 7 or more.

 

Is he an Enrolled Agent ? I wouldn't pay anybody that wasn't an EA or CPA . If you use anybody else you're on your own if audited or brought to tax court .

 

Yep he is. I was self employed for most of the time since '94. Due to wacky things going on in my life I didn't file since '02. He worked through all the back stuff. I had all the receipts. I was really good at collecting the receipts!


Rollover is correct about those heat printed fuel and register receipts. I never thought to copy them at home.

BTW my tax guy and I have been friends since 1980. My first driving job is where we met. I hooked him up with his first semi driving job.

I can say I trust him.

 

Many companies have an (opt out) form that you need to sign if you do not want the per diem. It seems that many companies by default use this now. My current job is local but they add the per diem on loads that are farther than 150 miles away from the terminal.

 

Can a company force employees to sign up for their per diem program?

 

yes they can force you and some are!

but it dont make it right.

 

There have been two occasions where my employer paid me a per diem even though they are not supposed to. It happens every time I take a trip for mileage instead of the usual hourly or per load pay. Oops...

 

thats if the company does not force you to do the per diem