Per diem pay

Correct me if I'm wrong but, I do not think the per diem deduction when filing taxes is allowed now.

 

Swift does it as well, but it was 1.5 cpm as the fee.

Lose the decimal point with the cpm amount. It is not .02 cents per mile, it is 2 cents per mile.
.10 is per dollar, which is 10 cpm.

It has changed since the tax code changed this year.
Now they deduct $71 per day and reimburse $66 per day.

 

At the moment, you can not claim your own per diem deductions if you are an employee on W2. I have read somewhere that lawmakers are trying to allow it again.

Regardless if you can claim Per diem or not, the savings that you can get from Per Diem pay only save the company more money and benefiting the employee little.

 

Yes, my mistake. You are correct it is 2 cents per mile.

 

Yes, my mistake. You are correct it is 2 cents per mile.

 

I just take my hourly paycheck......easy peasy. There is always that option, no per diem this, two deduction that, tax good this, tax bad that...just saying.

 

"Keep digging a hole", "shred of dignity left"...lol. Ive saved you a seat with the normal folk, come over when ready.

 

The current going rate for Per Diem is $66 per day for each day away from home. It is $66 that you are not paying taxes on that day, and this includes weekends out. So if you ran 7 days you should not pay taxes on $462 of your weekly income. It used to be that drivers (and anyone who job took them away from home, ie airline pilots) could itemize this deduction on their taxes if their itemized deductions were greater than their standard deductions, but the ability to itemize this was lost on the new tax law that passed I believe Dec 2017. Now only companies and o/o can claim per diem. The trade off is drivers have a larger standard deduction; 12k up from about 6k per person. The company can pass per diem onto the driver by lowering the drivers taxable income. So if a driver made $100 in a day, instead of being taxed on $100, theyd only be taxes on $34, this is huge. The downside is that now a drivers taxable income is lower than before, but your net is high since your paying less tax. And when applying for credit, lenders look at your taxable income. I have a friend who over came this by explaining this to the lender. Also, because per diem lowers your taxable income it also lowers you the amount you pay into social security and workmans comp, but I doubt social security will be solvent in the future. Trucking companies that use the Per Diem credit to lower their payroll tax can roll this over to the driver, but many companies use the whole credit of $66 and only roll over a fraction of that to the driver. This is what I got a problem with. And to see company folk virtually brag about this pisses me off as the only reason they can claim this deduction is because of the driver in the first place, and most trucking companies already under pay their drivers. There are a handfull of companies that pass 100% of the per diem deduction onto their drivers (if the driver wants) even as soon as rates change. For instance per diem used to be $63/day, and is now $66/day; this change was reflected immediately on drivers checks. I would say that if a trucking company is not willing to pass the full per diem amount onto its drivers, that company is not worth working for. If I was looking at company to drive for, thats one of the first things Id ask them, whats their per diem policy.

 

It is my understanding that Per Diem is 80% of the publish rate. So you do not get $66/day. You get 80% of that.

 

Most companies offer it as an option. Meaning a driver can accept it or opt out depending on their tax situation.
And a big misconception many drivers have is that it is "additional" pay. It is not. It simply lowers your taxable gross income which means more take home pay after tax.