per diem so confusing

mrEd is correct perdiem pay is travel pay, the company i drive for pays us 40$ a night we stay in our sleeper! alot of guys i work with take the 200.0$ a week and stay out!
i dont i like my own bed.

 

I would avoid a company that puts the perdiem into your cpm. They are not looking out for your best interest.

 

How do you figure they are "paying " you if they are giving per diem drivers a lower rate per mile ? You could take the non per diem rate and deduct more at the end of the year and get more credited towards Social Security .

 

there's a reason why they offer incentives to take per diem, and it's not because they like you and want to help you. it saves them from paying into your medicare and ssi fund. they're trying to screw you with per diem

 

thats basically if you dont want to keep receipts. what that poster was talking about is some industries give a per diem per day each day someone is traveling. the 59 buck deduction is just for meals, not hotels etc.

but he meant most companies use it as a tax dodge, the cents per mile they pay as perdiem adds up for them, thats amount will have no workmans comp ins paid, no matching ss tax, no unemployment tax on that. the benefits to the company are far greater than to the individual driver.

 

Taking per diem shifts a bit of your income from taxable to non-taxable. If you itemize, you can get the money back that you pay in taxes.

Carriers love it because they pay less in payroll and unemployment taxes.

http://www.landlinemag.com/Story.aspx?StoryID=21747

 

^^^ This needs to be mentioned again. Your immediate take-home pay can be as much or more if you take the straight pay & adjust your withholding. Here is the IRS calculator: http://apps.irs.gov/app/withholdingcalculator/ Plus your overall pay by the end of the year will be much higher... Just remember that you will be itemizing instead of taking the standard deduction, so keep receipts for everything!!!

 

I did not say it was expense money. I said it is extra pay to compensate someone for traveling. If they pay your extra expenses, it also is not per diem. True per diem is additional pay. Not expense reimbursement and certainly not s corporate tax dodge like these companies use it for.

 

Real per diem for truckers would be if my mileage pay was .30 cpm and my company gave me an additional $30 per day while I'm trucking. That's honest per diem