Stevens Transport - Dallas, Tx.

That's right. The tax code allows a driver to have a certain amount per day in travel expenses. That's what the per diem is. You are paid .26 a mile, or whatever your rate is - and they split it. They have a portion in regular earnings, which has federal income taxes taken out. Then there's the portion that's not taxed, which is entered in a separate section on your pay sheet as per diem. It's the other portion of your .26 a mile, but it's not taxed by payroll or the government.. at least not yet.
If Osama Bin Obama gets into office, he'll find a way to get a piece of that too.

 

I'm pretty sure that you're both wrong. Per diem rates are flat rates set by the I.R.S. and it happens that for transportation worker it's $52/day.
Per diem (latin for "daily" or "for each day") cannot, by federal law, be tied to how many miles I've driven (therefore $0.02/mile won't fly here) but only to how many days I was away from my home and it is not tax free money as many happen to think.
You must report the per diem as income and use your receipts to report your expenses on schedule 2106 attached to your 1040 return.
The IRS says that if you have more expenses than per diem you can write off the company incurred expenses of your income. However, you must pay tax on the excess per diem you receive.

That's because YOU are responsible to declare your own per diem taxes. It's up to YOU to keep up with all the receipts to prove I.R.S. that your expenses were higher than the per diem received from your employer.
No employer wants to be collecting meal receipts from every driver from about 2000 elegible drivers every single day. They couldn't be able to do anything else besides calculating tax deductions for each driver. That's just unreasonable.

 

stanko,

you are having a serious case of rookyitist, not listening to experienced drivers telling you the truth, but arguing with us thinking you are right. Ask your trainier, ask driver services, ask your dm, they will all tell you what we are telling you, per diem is INCLUDED in your 26 cents per mile, you just do not pay taxes on it, and also it is not counted as income for car loans, house loans.

Now if you can afforded to spend more than $52 per day for living expenses on the road, go ahead and do it...I don't even come close to spending that much, so it is easier to take the IRS per diem than keep all those receipts.

Keep aruging and learn from the school of hard knocks, or stop thinking you are right, and listen to the advice from experienced drivers, your choice which road you use.

 

I would like to say if any of the drivers out there thinks that Stevens is a bad idea
try being dirt poor and desperate for work for awhile and see how that comes out...So far they have not done anything that I would consider bad business
they are doing a good thing for some people here ,and I don not have illusions about any of it, I know this will not be easy but let me tell you brothers and sisters ,you gotta start somewhere..
Currently I am still in training and if any one else out there has been where I am now I could use some heads up on the training ,so far this is my 5 th day
I have passed all the hand written D.P.S test and I am practicing my driving
Its actually not that hard to do (in the yard) but I still think I could use some pointers....

 

per diam? i havent heard about it at Stevens brother maybe you misunderstood some one cause my contract with Stevens does`nt say anything other than 0.26 a mile ,but first all we get is $350.00 a week for 2 mnths. I looked over the contract carefully (I AM LOOKING AT IT RIGHT NOW) and it doe not say anything about per diam, so for your own sake brother try to get the facts right .I am not trying to sound mean,but you got to know what is going on before you think you are getting burnt, because you are not going to get 0.26 + $52.00 ,sorry man its just simply not there. and if you qoute the goverment ratings and federal laws give us a chap. # andsection # so we can look it up

 

i am an experianced driver therefore i am going to argue with you on this. for every 24 hours you are away from home you are allowed to take a $52 a day tax break at the end of the year weather you spent 52 a day. learn the tax laws before coming on herean telling others that a perdiem is the way to go. you take the perdiem yoo lose that tax break and any other tax break you would get to itemize at the end of the year. and dont tell me i am wrong, 5 years of doing it that way and never had a problem wit the irs.

 

now as far as Stevens goes, it is like anyother company, some liek it some dont. my friends kid brother drove for them for 3 years, generally out 5-6 weeks at a time, home for 5 days. he banked a really big load of cash, he has nothing bad to say about them

 

bowhunter, i was not not questioning the IRS rules on per diem, but stankos idea of what stevens is going to pay him. With stevens you have no choice to take per diem or not, they pay you per diem out of the 26 cents per mile, which does reduce the drivers tax liability, and also the companies, but also reduces you adjusted gross income, which affects your credit, and how much one can borrow for a home.

 

use the search feature here at TTR, and type in per diem and that will bring up several thread's on the subject.

 

Actually you are allowed to take %80 of $52 per 24hr period away from the house this year (the percentage has been going up each year and has a preset ceiling, but I'm not sure what it is). Or $41.60 per day. Keep your logs books as proof in the event of an audit. This deduction is a meals allowance only. Any other unremembered expenses (like cell phone bills, internet access, computers, plus many other things) occurred while preforming your duties may also be deducted if you itemize at the end of the year. For this most part, only people that have a mortgage will have enough expenses to justify itemized deductions over the standard deduction, but of course there are exceptions.

When a driver is payed "per diem", as in this case, means that a portion of your .26cpm (ouch, that's criminal, WHY do you agree to this pay) is not taxed. That is all. That will increase you take home pay only because not as much taxes are being taken out at the time. This is almost always a bad idea for the employee and always better for the employer because the employer, that has to match your Social Security tax and pay additional taxes bases on it's employees taxes.

The driver gets hurt in a couple of ways. You're taxable income is actually lower at the time of your paycheck, but so is your reported Gross income at the end of the year. Because a portion of your income is untaxed at the time it is not considered income by lending institutions and it will significantly affect your ability to buy a home or car.

Now,this untaxed income may sound like a good deal as you are cashing your checks, but when your year end tax time comes around you get a nasty kick in the butt. Why, because a driver like me who is on the road for around 300 days a year will get more than a $13,000 deduction for meal expenses alone, whether I spend that much or not. Of course my meal expensed are no where close to that, so it is like free money to me in the form of a heafty tax return, often equal to well over a months pay.

Drivers that have been payed "per diem" are not entitled to this deduction because they were granted the "per diem" classification. If you happen to be a business man the routinely spends that kind of money on meals on a daily basis and itemizes them out at the end of the year, you are in good shape, but a driver who makes .26cpm is being raked over the coals.

Now the points I have made are my general understanding of the "per diem" thing. I am not an accountant. If you want the real skinny talk to an accountant or do a search on this site. There are some very in depth and informative threads on this subject.