Perplexed by forced per diem option?

What Kansas and Taxphd are not considering is the drivers view point of a carrier ...and there is nothing personal here guys.

Most motor carriers have a pre-concieved notion of the std drivers intellegence , attitudes and basically just what they can get away with from past experience. John Doe has the same opinon of a trucker.

Todays trucker has been shafted by mgmt, shippers, the public and the law by proxy ( notions, opinions , stereo type ) or in reality as such that the driver is very suspicious of truck management and JQP. It's always been that if mgmt wants it then it's bad for me and that is usually true. This may be the exception but the suspicion is still there hence the negative rebuttal.

I'll cite one example of carrier games.....I joined a common carrier, mid sized fleet and he offered a health plan..ok fine, I took it ( at 90 days , who else does that??? ) to the tune of some $600 a month my part for 75/ 25. Well the DOT clerk was whining one evening about her small check so we asked her about her bills etc and in the conversation and she says the $250 a month co. plan is killing her...huh? Long story short I was able to verify that the drivers paid the $600 for the plan ( single ) and the admin folks paid $250 / mo for the same plan in the same group. ( Group?? ) I was able to verify this is leagal too. The carrier can dole out the bulk premiums anyway he wants.......

So now we do the why....because there is no way a $12 / hr office girl could or would pay $600 / mo for ins. She either wouldn't come or wouldn't buy the policy , both of which are detrimental to the carriers operations SO he packs additional premium on to those to whom he can shaft to subsidize a lower premium for the staff. Real fair huh? No reason for suspicion right? IMO a group is group and the point of the group policy is to dilute the bills of the sick across the healthy so everyone gets a level premium.

There are hundreds of examples like this known and unknown that a driver has experienced across his career....which makes him suspicious of anything a carrier wants.

The facts are true and the rest is JMO.

 

In rethinking my position on leaving Marten, Irealized I wasn't comparing apples to apples...what I needed to be looking at was gross pay..when I add mileage pay to per diem and compare that to say, K and B's "guarantee ' of $950/Wm and I consider Marten's attainable monthly bonuses, it becomes pretty much a wash. I still have reservations about being paid with per diem as a large percentage of my check, but the jury's out till tax time before I can truly reach a solid opinion. Thanks for your articulate response.

 

I've never heard anything good about KB

 

Ya know ..I researched all I could find on them and. concluded that the only positive comments were from people who had been with the company since its inception (1987) or drivers from NE that run a local or dedicated account. I did talk with one driver up in WI who said things were good with K and B but he had only been there three months and he'd been out the entire time since hire...Well of course tings are good...no fleet manager gonna argue with a new driver who stays out three months. In the video on their website, the Guy on that says how great K and B is...that he's been there 25 years....2013 minus 25...1988...company formed 1987...he's probably not even a driver ...So yeah ..I put all that together then began thinking about the way I was comparing the $ and decided I wasn't giving Marten a fair shake....Thanks Again.

 

TaxPhD - Laughing at someone else's frustration is wrong, I know, but I do so get a kick out of your responses to some of these posts! Great information. I have a high degree of confidence in how you address these issues and am thankful that you are looking in an willing to share...but God help me, I am also thankful that these guys drive you a little berserk...keep up the good fight. Laughing with you, not at you!

 

Don't use the per diem scam, (the company makes money on the admin, that's your money you drove those miles to earn) and don't work for a company that limits you to that method. You should at least have a choice. I presume you know enough to keep all receipts except those already covered by your daily travel expense tax deduction. 80% of $58/day, I believe, worked day away from your home location. Clothing, food, the necessities of your maintenance. Read your IRS schedule, it's very informative.

 

Get a tax man that knows trucking, and skip this stupid thread. It's $59 a day @ 80%.

 

Hello Pony. I read a few of your posts on this thread so I thought maybe you could answer a question or two for me.

I was a rookie driver back in 2016 and my first job was with Stevens Transport out of Dallas. I went with them because although their pay was bottom-of-the-barrel, their training program was top-shelf single malt. So I decided to bite the bullet for a while in exchange for the rigorous gauntlet that they put newbies through. And I'm glad I did; if you can do a year with Stevens, you're pretty much good-to-go anywhere else.

So when I started, they paid their rooks .30 a mile. I know, I know...but it was worth the struggle. They deducted .11 per mile on our checks which was tax-free. So as I look at the 2016 W-2, I made $9234 for the six months that I worked with them that year (I started in June). There were the federal, social security and medicare figures also, but no mention of the per diem, which I assume they don't report to the IRS.

So my question: Can I still deduct the $63 per diem on my return? I called their payroll office and they didn't really sound to confident in their answer. Their answer was actually, "You'd better consult your attorney to be safe."

Many thanks for your help. I'm not in the habit of double-dipping, but if the IRS is giving money away, I'm all for it!

 

The current rate is $66/day, which you are allowed to deduct 80%. But since the tax change last year, you can only deduct that as an owner operator or perhaps a leased driver, not as a company employee. The only way you can currently have the per diem as a company driver is if it is deducted pre-tax.

If you are correcting old taxes, you could deduct 80% of whatever the rates were for those years MINUS whatever the mileage rate the company gave you as per diem, for every day that you logged on the road.

 

I would prefer a charge card issued by company for food items that fills at 66 dollars a day. They can go write that off at the Tax man, and you would not hear a complaint from me.