NEW LEASE OPERATOR UPDATE - 1st post 4/18/13

Ya, I just like seeing how much I would have for fuel. I personally can't lease, just found an "ok" paying gig locally. However, I love to do the math and see what profit I can squeeze out of numbers. if I were ever to return to OTR, I would probably go swift to lease. Company driver is great if you just want a paycheck. (Nothing wrong with that, just to simplistic for me.)

be safe

 

Accounting has rules ... fuel is an expense, the FSC is revenue ... they are on opposite sides of the balance sheet.

Also ... your tax liability is less than 10% total ...

 

I would be extremely careful not to underestimate what your going to owe to the government and your state. It happened to me last quarter, it really bit me in the behind, because I was expecting it to be so much less than what it ended up being.

words to the wise, be careful ,

 

You using ATBS? ... They simply use 25% for your quarterly ... I don't even bother to pay quarterly ... out of the past 3 years I only paid a penalty once - $23. It's not worth my time to spend the effort to file quarterly.

 

Yes yes yes, ATBS, and OMG!!!! $2500. between fed and state was what they told me was due for this Jan, Feb and March. I really was in disbelief over the amount, I questioned whether or not they took any per diem or had my expenses figured correctly.

What made it so bad was, not paying the money, but just the saturday before I went and bought a new car and had put 5 grand as a down pymt, and add to that taking over a week off, and well, it blew me away financially, and just now I am starting to recup my expenses and build back up my savings.

I really appreciate your comments, and do sometimes question ATBS, however...lets wait and see.

Thank you for saying what you did in your post, I may think twice next quarter if the amount seems outrageous, maybe I won't be as quick to freak out and pay it as quickly as I did last time. Just one more thing to think about, haha.

 

That's the crux of the issue when you hand the management of your business over to a 3rd party. In order to ensure they are doing their job, you pretty much have to keep all your own numbers to verify what they are doing. At that point what do you need them for? You already have all the data to do it yourself. Plus you save yourself around $860 a year.

 

Its not worth paying someone else to watch your finances unless your running a larger business or you own even just a few trucks and hire people to drive them. Unless you get with a 3rd party that understands the situation then you might get screwed more in the end. Before I decided to be a trucker I took an accounting course, I only got through accounting 1 though and thinking about doing online courses just to further my own knowledge and save the aches and pains along with forking out paying someone.

 

Truckbudda,i would argue,respectfully,that you are to quick to spend money when your savings are to low.
I would stop spending money untill i had 20 000 in the bank.
In bussiness you will find that building up your first financial reserve is the most important when you have a starting bussiness.

May we know if you have any creditcarddebt?

 

Actually I am very debt free, except for my new ride, I do try and make saving a first priority in my life. I roll my own cigarettes, RYO/MYO with the tubes/etc, eat out of the truck, walmarts etc, and actually my biggest otr expense is my daily coffee refills, about $4/day, so I try and even make my own coffee to drink to save money, haha.

I will agree with you completely, its so important to have money saved and on hand. When I got my last 90 DOT insp, they found a wiring problem with LED lights that the previous occupant had put in incorrectly, a hundred dollar bill to get that fixed in SLC term. Then a brake drum went out and a sensor on the DPF had to be fixed last week, $300 in Denver term. So BOOM! there goes a nice chunk of a paycheck, bye bye.

Actually to be very truthful, I had put almost 10K in savings between my maintenance acct, saving and checking, in just 3 months! Granted, I worked my butt off to do it, but it was better than hitting on a slot machine.

But your comments did make me stop and think, I'll bet ATBS used a standard 25% figure for the quarterly tax. It seems they just got lazy and didn't add the numbers up right.

But I would disagree about all one needs is an accounting background to do ones' own taxes. I think some things should be left up to the professionals. It, in a way, gives me some peace of mind. As you, I am sure are aware, we all have enough to constantly worry over and think about, I don't want to add to my mountain of daily concerns, its nice to pay someone else to worry for me for a change.

It has been and is, a constant never ending learning experience for me, each and every day!

Its quite nice really, I never seem to get as bored with nothing to think about like when I was a company driver, hahaha!

Peace, love and light to you my fellow brother and sister truck drivers.

 

What you need is just a good old fashioned CPA. In all of my years, never paid quarterly, never paid a fine, and this year my CPA raised her price on me, $200 to look out after my taxes. Alot cheaper than ATBS.