Per Diem And Tax?

you can claim $59 per day for per diem on your taxes

 

Not in his situation.

He is part of the per diem plan at work and can only take a reduced amount since most will be pretaxed.

 

You can take per diem pay from the company AND deduct remainder of your actual expenses with the IRS if those expenses are more than the company per diem amount. HOWEVER, you are required to document your actual expenses. In no case can you get credit or deduct for more than your actual expenses.

To make a simple example: say your company pays you $20 per diem and your actual expenses are $30 per day. You can accept the $20 company per diem and submit $10 per day in unreimbursed expenses per day.

So the re-cap is actual expenses are $30 per day. Company per diem is $20 per day, and you can also submit $10 per day to the IRS.


YOU CANNOT accept $20 per diem and submit $30 per day in actual expenses. Since your actual are $30, that is the most, in total, you can claim from company/IRS combined.

I recognize the daily per diem is more than $20, plug in your actual numbers in the manner of this example.

I've preferred to skip per diem for simplicity sake.

 

While your example is okay for the reimbursement to a point.

Transportation workers can elect to not keep receipts and take the per diem of 59.00 per day in the United States. They are also able to track where ever they stopped and take the per diem for that location if they want.

There is no requirement for the actual expenses to be submitted.

 

Everyone is pointing you in the right direction. It is a complicated tax question. Since you need to have an understanding of it, check out this thread:

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...-advice/146103-per-diem-as-part-your-pay.html

You should hang onto your logbooks as they will serve as your tax records for this deduction. IMHO, you should keep them for ten years in case of audits.

 

You can claim your actual expenses (if you have receipts or records) or you can use the daily deduction for transportation workers if you haven't been reimbursed for them by the company.

It's not necessary for you to be all or nothing, that is all per diem or no per diem. You can be per diem for some period and Form 2106 for another period. Just be careful not to double benefit in excess of actual expenses.

Look into IRS Form 2106 and associated publication.

 

Note also that in some cities you are in the rate is higher. I stayed in Miami, FL for two days a week last year and the rate was quite a bit more than the $59.00 per day.
Remember, you HAVE to be able to proove where you were, the log book takes care of that requirement.
In my situation I recieved about $7,500.00 in per diem from my company. Using the $59.00 per day plus whatever increased rate for the city I was in that was in the neighborhood of $12,000.00. I was able to claim an aditional $4,500.00.
It goes without saying that you have to itemize instead of using the short forms.
Jack

 

you my want to reread the OP,, he said they are not giving him at this time so YES HE CAN take it

 

I asked my tax guy about it, and he actually recommended against per diem pay from my employer, for my situation. I was told that since I have a wife and 3 kids, I will have next to no tax liability when it comes to tax time (last 2 years I was refunded everything paid in), so it's not going to be a tax savings (recommended I change my w-4 withholding to Married 11). He also told me, with some companies, the amount they take out does not get social security/medicare tax......some do, some don't. He basically told me that the per diem pay was more beneficial to employers, because if you aren't paying SS/Medicare taxes on a portion of your pay, neither are they....but they won't be the ones with a reduced social security check. He also told me, with some companies, the amount they take out does not get social security/medicare tax......some do, some don't. I don't know about you, but when I get to the point of receiving SS checks, I don't want my SS check to be smaller. Also told since my pay is reduced, and some gets moved to the reimbursement line for the per diem pay, will make it harder to get a loan, because banks will not include reimbursement pay for your salary. But that's my tax situation.

I know I really didn't answer your question, but always recommend talking to a tax person before you take the per diem plunge. But from what I understand, you can take the per diem deduction on your taxes for days you don't get per diem pay, and if the per diem pay is less than the day's deduction, you can also claim that.