Tax write offs for local drivers

Meals and lodging (including showers) - Canada.ca

 

Ok

Ok first you need to know the rules.
1-You are allowed to claim 1 meal if you are working for 12 hrs, are travelling at least 2 hrs away from home terminal.
2- If you work over a 12 hr day you are allowed a 2nd meal.
3- If you are away from home terminal for a full 24 hrs you can book a 3rd meal.

Some guys shunt in the yard for 8 hrs and book 3 meals, the CRA will eventually catch up to you.

 

Yep. They expect you to eat one meal at home. I only claim two meals a day. One idiot we had working for us claimed three because he wanted to buy a quad… got 9 grand back, bought a quad, then got audited. Lol. Sold the quad for less than he paid to pay back cra.

 

3 meals a day does not get you $9000. Remember the meals are a deduction. But the deduction is not from taxes owed. Tha amount is a deduction of your income. If you are paying 25% of your income in taxes you would save 25 % of the $9000. I don't have the wording of meal expenses handy but you do not claim the whole amount of the expense. There are other rules about being away from home terminal.

 

He had other questionable deductions. Lol.

 

Right, it gets you more than 9000...$69 a day x 365 =$25185 × 80% claimable = $20148 off taxable income. I didn't work 365 a year, but that's the potential...I ended up with $10-$12000 tax return each year for me during my OTR years.

 

You have to be 160km from your home terminal and be gone for 24 hours. Of course there is no way that CRA would accept 365 days. I doubt they would accept more than say 260 days. You might get away with higher numbers but Lord help you if they decide to check your return. They will look back and if they see more it will be more than a slap of the wrist.

 

Lol why not 259 days? Where does 260 come from?? Take everything with a grain of salt from Brucesmith, not the first time ive noticed him talking out their ***

I claimed 300 to 325 days a year for 4 years. They held my 4th year return n did an audit, was easy to deal with. N the audit was triggered due my previous tax place making an unrelated mistake. I didn't even have all my logs anymore...still got my last return no problem even tho I didn't take care of it for over a year.

 

Do as you please. If the cra decides that this is the year to check truck driver meal deductions could be problems.

 

This is why you keep your logs whether paper or electronic for 7 years.... I got audited in '82,,before log books so I wrote the info on a brown paper bag and CRA accepted. It was the first year I claimed 3 meals a day so that may have raised a red flag.