Talk to me about why...

In another thread you asked about per diem. Whether or not per diem is right for you is a highly personal question. It depends on you tax liability, other sources of income, deductions, etc. You need to talk to a tax professional who can assess you tax liabilities and give you specific advice. With the disclaimer out of the way here's Uncle Gentleroger's quick and dirty explanation of per diem. When truck drivers talk about Per Diem we talk about a tax deduction that the Federal Government grants truck drivers. They give us this deduction for two reasons. The first is because we lead a unique lifestyle. We maintain two houses - one at home for our families and one on the road for ourselves. The second is our meek and mild acceptance of FMCSA/DOT regulation. There are generaly three ways to take this deduction: 1) Itemize - save all your receipts for qualifying expenses over the course of the year. Add it all up and there's your deduction. For a complete list of things that are deductible (and the cap amount), see your Neighborhood Tax Professional. Generally better for guys that own their own truck in some shape or manor as all of their maintenance, scale tickets, etc are deductible. 2) Use the Standard Deduction. For 2013 Per Diem was set at $59. For each full day you spend on the road you can deduct 80% or $47.20; for each day you start OR end in your home of record you can deduct $35.50. Add up all full and partial days, multiply by the appropriate amount and there's your deduction. Again see your Friendly Tax Professional for any cap amounts. 3) Take the deduction up front, thru your company. Your company will pay you part of your pay in Mileage which is taxable, and part in Per Diem, which is NOT. I believe that Schneider caps the Per Diem CPM at .14 but I'm not positive on that. Going this way you will pay less in Federal taxes. Since both you and SNI are paying so much less in payroll taxes the Feds charge SNI to use this option. SNI passes the majority of that charge onto you, the driver, in the form of .02 CPM. Please see http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...0-schneider-chat-room-closed-see-new-769.html or http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...0-schneider-chat-room-closed-see-new-643.html for a really nifty chart (if I do say so myself). Assuming all other things equal taking Per Diem up front will cost that driver between $1,000 and $2,000 dollars in after tax income a year. They only way the up front option helps the driver is if it lowers them a tax bracket. If it can drop you a tax bracket then it will save you some money. However there are some additional watch outs. Social Security is based on your highest 35 years of indexed earnings. If you use the "up front" option you will cut your SSN basis significantly. You will also run into issues getting credit as your W-2 will show significantly less income than you actually are making. As I said in the beginning it's all going to come down to your own personal circumstances. You need to get some professional advice on what will end up putting the most money in your pocket at the end of the year. The above is the grossest of generalizations and is only intended to be a starting point.

 

Me either

 

LE - I read the whole thread, seems like you got most of the answers you were looking for. Hope you made your decision about coming to SNI, I have been in the business for 18 years and in my experience I have found that SNI is one of the best out there as far as mega carriers go. Safety is first here, and you will hear all the time that the decision to drive is in your hands. If you feel that the road conditions are not safe to travel on you make the decision to shut it down. Follow that with a phone call and it's a wrap.

I worked in the Charlotte STA for a while and trained A LOT of rookies for SNI. Some of them are on this forum... Any questions you have about the training process I can answer for you. Best of luck to you whatever you decide to do!

 

Man I made it to about halfway through page 5 and then I had to call a therapist.

 

I'm wearing that to the next company safety meeting