Only a blitering imbecile...

As many know, i used to work there, and i was ALWAYS bragginghow good they were. Then around 2008 little things started changing, loss of missed home time pay, if you didn't get home on time, dispatchers started to argue with you when you asked for po's for reimbursment of thngs you paid out out of pocket for. Did away with washing out trailers, buy a broom and sweep it out. 2009 started seeing good long loads vanishing. When i asked, the reply was, we lost the customer.

Yet i knew of no other reefer companys stepping into the same cust. Those loads were getting put on the train. Ah so the rumors were true. This also explained why we were being told NO, you can;t have that trailer, it was a intermodle trailer and was being saved for rail loads, yet we the drivers were being forced to go miles and miles looking for a non rail trailer, to go load our non rail load. Then you had to explain why you were asking for out of route miles. Funny how a large carrier such as Marten couldn't have a daily updates list to thier beck and call, by noon where the emptys are.

2010,Perdiem was offered as a way to take more money home each week. Right. But they failed to tell you, they now will no longer pay all your payrool taxes. Oh and ontop of this, they 'chraged' you so many cents per mile for the perdeim option. So in short, your paying them , to get paid. They also failed to tell us, that when you try to go get a loan, your w-2 will only show what you made in perdeim for the year. So now when you went to try and get a loan, the banker or loan people would say, well you only made this much, and when you tell them well im paid on perdiem, they just look at you funny.
I challeneg any Current Marten driver, to prove howperdiem is better than now perdeim pay.
Later that same year,Perdiem was FORCED onto all company drivers.

Then about the same time, the sliding pay scale came in. Less mony for the longer runs. So now in order to make the same amount of money, you had to runn your *** off on a bunch of smaller mile loads, than you did with 1-2 longer mile loads. What happeend to work smarter, not harder? Mean while most of the 2000 mile loads have gone to the rail, and now they were starting on the 1000-1999 miles loads, to go by rail. All the while having otr trucks load them and then drop them in the rail yard. Then on the other end, another otr truck would p/u and delever the load.100 miles away. Ohh big money there .
Now they have gone to a regioanl company. Won't put drivers begging to go regioanl, but yet every single new hire gets regioanl if they want it. Even over those withj 5yrs or more time in with the company.
Theyhave started to clean the office of office staff with 15,20,25 years in with the company, quit or get fired. So they can now bring in college ######## with no time in a truck , to sell, plan dispatch a load.

Like i said they USED TO be a great company, now they are lower than a snakes belly.

 

You are paid Per Diem so that the company will not have to pay the matching 7.5 % FICA tax it pays on your income. It does reduce your FICA tax, too.

 

True, but if you take what you have in Per Diem taken out by the company and then subtract that from what the IRS allows you, you will still have a nice amount to put on your taxes off the gross.

This should not hurt you unless you are within 10 years of retiring on Social Security. Then they take the gross and determine what you rate.

On another side note - If you claim Per Diem on your taxes, make sure you get a letter from that company as to what they reimburse and do not reimburse. If you get audited IRS will be requiring this letter. I am being audited for 2008 and in the end had to pay a lawyer $200 to resend a letter requesting the letter from the companies I drove for in 2008.

Mark