How Per Diem works now

Right, this is 100% correct. The other guy was suggesting something different.

 

Per Diem in trucking seems rather odd to me. When I worked as a cell tower engineer, my per diem was in addition to my pay rate; about an extra $100 per day while on the road. Weird.

Years later I was a field engineer and while I didn’t get per diem per se, I did have a company credit card that I used for hotels, flights, rentals, food and incidentals. Weird.

Weird how the trucking industry wants to pay you less, charge you for it, and make it sound like their doing you a favor.

All they are actually doing is saving themselves a boat load of money on FICA.

I would never agree to pay someone so they can pay me less taxable income. But, PT Barnum said it best.

 

Man company drivers got screwed losing the per diem deduction.

 

Your comment jogged a memory, your right. My 1st OTR trucking job was as company driver. We got paid $40per day for meals and road expenses. (I dont remember if they called it per diem, but that's effectively what it was)This was paid in addition to our regular hourly pay. So yes we paid taxes on our entire paycheck. But that. Extra $280 was like free untaxed money.

 

And that is exactly what per diem pay is supposed to be, untaxed money paid to you on top of your regular pay so that you can pay for meals & incidentals while away from home.