Per Diem Question

You can claim per diem for every day that you are away from home, $59.00 per day and you get to take 80% of this off for per diem.

 

The real question is, "are you going home each nite" , or are you in a motel in another city other than your tax home.
If you are away from home, you can deduct the meal costs and the motel costs, as long as you are not re-imbursed by your employer.
If you are in your tax home city, no you can not.

 

$59 per day? really...I only get $24, but then again I'm only gone for 36 hrs at a time

 

From IRS website:

Transportation industry per diem. Effective Oct. 1, 2010, taxpayers in the transportation industry paying (or deducting) a per-diem only for M&IE may treat $59 as the M&IE rate for all localities within CONUS and $65 as the M&IE rate for all localities outside of CONUS (same as the previous rates). (Rev Proc 2010-39, Sec. 4.04(3)) A transition rule provides that taxpayers that used the federal M&IE rates or the special transportation industry rates during the first nine months of 2010 for an individual can't switch to the other method for that individual until 2011. ( Rev Proc 2010-39, Sec. 4.04(6) )

 

All good and well advice except that the poster has elected to be part of the company per diem.

It was answered in the poster's other thread asking the same question.

 

Didn't realize he elected to go company per diem...good catch!

 

so for per diem I take 59 dollars for everyday I work and take out 80% of that as a write off.

 

They only way you can deduct per diem is if you itemize. And if you don't have more then 11000 dollars in deductions you can't deduct anything.

I have talked with two tax experts about this. I didn't have 11 grand in deductions so I took the companys tax advantage plan. The drawback is you don't have as much paid into social security. The pros are better net pay and a lower gross income which could keep you out of a higher tax bracket.

Now I am no expert. This is what I have been told by experts.

 

So who are 'these' tax experts? Names / websites please. So the rest of us can confirm this.
I was on FORCED PERDEIEM, and not only did i end up broke, my credit suffered, because banks and other lenders, don't accept perdiem wages when going for a loan. Pluse now Socila Security has sufferad, because employer didn;t have to pay as much into it.