Per Diem vs overtime

Discussion in 'Questions From New Drivers' started by buddy55arb, Jun 12, 2012.

  1. buddy55arb

    buddy55arb Bobtail Member

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    Jun 11, 2012
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    My company started paying PerDiem - now they are deducting this from overtime? Is that how it works? I thought it would be in addition to my pay for regular time and ot. Anyone have this situation
     
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  3. Moosetek13

    Moosetek13 Road Train Member

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    I thought per diem was for OTR drivers to compensate them for OTR expenses while on the road.

    Are you an OTR driver?
    Never heard of OTR getting paid 'regular time' and 'overtime'.
     
  4. vinsanity

    vinsanity Road Train Member

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    Per diem is not an additional pay. The company gives you a part of your pay tax free. This offsets what you can deduct for being away from home.

    What is it you do? OTR? LTL?
     
  5. buddy55arb

    buddy55arb Bobtail Member

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    I am OTR, my company converts paid miles in to an hourly payrate the is why it shows as Reg. and OT. Thank for clearing up the perdiem question.
     
  6. CondoCruiser

    CondoCruiser The Legend

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    This is one of my pet peeves with the job. Welcome to trucking. Since we are exempt from many labor laws even per diem is different. Trucking companies have twisted it around where they take it out of your income since you live in their truck. Since we are paid by the mile they'll tell the gov't you only make 29 cpm plus 9 cpm per diem even though you were hired in making 38 cpm. Any employee that elected not to take the per diem will still be paid 38 cpm. Go figure? Meanwhile they'll cabbage the savings on social security match, 401K match and workers comp match to name a few. Multiply that by several employees and it's a very large savings. This is why many carriers are now forcing per diem on employees.

    Truckers are perfectly content being told a percentage of their income is tax free. Many haven't figured out they are only saving the tax on $59 instead of getting $59. It's about $7 a day in saved tax dollars while the rest of the employment world is getting $59+ a day tax free cash on top of what they make. That hardly pays for one meal. Some area's even pay double that. In reality truckers make about 9 cpm less than what they are told plus per diem. Always opt out if given a chance.

    I had a stint building water tanks living on the road. We got our regular checks plus a separate per diem check every week. The per diem check I forget now but was like $500-600. Enough to pay for a motel, food and have extra left over. They won't do that in the trucking world so they can keep cost down. One reason we got it was we usually did gov't contracts that paid prevailing wage and the gov't paid the per diem. The gov't ain't gonna pay a trucker anything.

    My last employer I left at the end of November. The W-2 showed I made only $23K while the last pay stub YTD showed $42K. Crooks is all I can say. Per diem should of been half of that and the W-2 show about $10K more. But there is no gov't entity to complain about per diem that I can find. It just puts the responsibility on you come tax time.

    We have several threads on per diem. Just type it in the forum search feature above and you'll find them.
     
  7. Rollover the Original

    Rollover the Original Road Train Member

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    The company is screwing you with a "per diem" pay! I bet they also charge you to figure it out OR to figure it per mile!
    The per diem you get from the goverment after you file your taxes is much better than what the company is doing to you!
    Look at it like this..
    They SAY you make $.39 a mile
    The SAY they PAY you $.09 CPM per diem
    BUT when you figure out your pay they actually just MOVE that $.09 somewhere and say they gave it to you! Look at that pay stub again! Does it look like you made $.39 a mile plus a per diem? Yeah they even lied to you during the recruitment and orientation didn't they?

    BUT what actually happens is they figure this out BEFORE they figure your taxes to uncle Sam.
    This means that IF you drive for these BFIs for many years, you get screwed 2 ways with a few extras thrown in for kicks and giggles!!

    1) Your Social Security taxes for that paltry Social Security for when you get old will NOT be as high as it's based on the taxes you pay in, BUT BFI there is cutting your "paid in" to SSI by that pathetic per diem pay they are "paying" you your actual mileage!

    2) IF you get injured on the job and you have to take workers comp then you will NOT get what you would IF you had refused that per diem pay! Yes Workers Comp pays YOU what you pay in as taxes! That means that your "paid in " taxes are lower so you get less while healing from that injury you got. Real nice that per diem pay ain't it? Also good when paying the house note, feeding the family and all those other costs you thought WC was going to pay! (My advice here is to pay for your OWN disability insurance like that duck or any other company! Do NOT trust any trucking company these days to "take care" of your interests!)

    3) The IRS last year I filed paid $59 dollars a day percentage at filing. It also has a COL increase each year also ( Bill Clinton had screwed the trucking industry and thought the "2 martini lunch deduction" which the per diem pay actually is called, was a "rich" mans deduction as told to him by the idiots of his party! So the moron decided to try to reduce it by rewriting that law. The ATA sat on their hands and did NOTHING until those of us with brains screamed that we were going to get bent and we did that first year! Then the ATA figured out that most of us aren't as stupid as they thought and helped along with the ONLY group that did speak up which was OOIDA! BUT that idiot in chief decided to keep the screws to us and had the IRS set it up that we would get the deduction back at it's rate BUT because it would "hurt the economy" if they gave it back the way it was before an idiot took it away it was prorated over the years! Anyway thats the story on per diem pay.

    4) Will your employer charge you any money to "take" something forced on you? Some were charging $.02-..05 CPM to "figure" your per diem pay! That's a scam alone! First they force you to take their per diem then charge you to figure with 3 grade math how much you get paid? Heck some even charged you to charge you to do the math! It took me less than 3 minutes with easy calc to do a spreadsheet to figure your pay, the per diem and your taxes minus medical and "other" costs! These idiots are charging you for something that a 3rd grader can do with a calculator OR one office puke can do with a free spreadsheet writing program OR some code writer (programmer) can do with 3 or 4 lines of code?

    Yeah think about it. Take the number of trucks BFI has then multiply that against 3000 miles a week or less if that's not a fair work week of driving. Next take the total miles and multiply that times what they charge you per mile to do that math. That figure is what they are stealing from their drivers to do them the favor of paying them THEIR per diem! For one trucking company with a terminal on I70 outside of Columbus OH they would have made over 5 MILLION on their 5000 plus trucks! That's to figure out what they FORCED their drivers to take with NO opt out on the RICO theft! The gooberment never did a single thing to them when they were shown where they were using strong arm tactics to make money off their drivers!

    Will YOU get this in per diem pay from BFI? NO! You'll get much better returns when you file for each day you spent away from your home than you will with a few pennies a day! Yeah it's cash in hand each week BUT a few thousand dollars at the end of the year from Sam is a lot better! So is what you should get when injured on the job AND when you retire! All BFI gets is your money and they save a ton on THEIR taxes rhhey have to pay! The only BAD thing is you should keep those logbooks in your files as they are what you use to figure your per diem AND if you get audited!

    IF your company uses Elogs or any of the other computer driven logging programs then tell them you need copies at the end of the month for tax purposes OR get a logging program and use it for your own personal use to keep your logs handy. The IRS is ok with computer generated programs like DDI or others as long as they can print out the needed records. They are also ok with CD/DVDs with copies of your logs. Me I have paper as thats how I filed for years BUT I still have several years of DDL for just in case my files from 1971 to date disappear! (Really I DO have 2 big office type boxes full of every tax form I have ever filed except for 1972! Yep that keep for 7 years is not factual! The IRS CAN come for an audit for ANY year they want and YOU are the one that has to prove you do NOT owe them! The IRS is NOT a court of law where we are innocent until! With them you better have it or they get it!
     
    wheels4reelz Thanks this.
  8. kurbski

    kurbski Light Load Member

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    If you are getting ripped off, Start job shopping. It might take two or three months to find the best fit for your lifestyle. Depending on where you live, good drivers are hard to find and companies are starting to increase pay and benefits. BOL
     
  9. CondoCruiser

    CondoCruiser The Legend

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    The thing about it kurbski is when one company finds a loophole to be more profitable, they all start following. You see more and more companies making per diem mandatory. Back in the 90's you never heard of such.

    It ought to be one of the new drivers hire in questions and a red flag on how well/bad one will be treated. Companies with mandatory per diem don't care about their drivers.
     
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