Self employed Owner Operator taxes

he can put a resinator (small muffler) under the truck and be legal. I like loud pipes as much as the next guy but compleatley unmuffled straights are obnoxous and the source of all the anti engine brake legislations.

 

CO has always been hard on CDL drivers even in their personal vehicles.

 

I was just letting him know a way to do it if unresticted flow was what he was shooting for.

 

Yes use a good cpa too start out with try to find one that specializes in doing taxes for truck drivers, as far as deducting for clothing I don't thionk that will fly UNLESS the clothing is specifically used and needed for the job....been down that street and the cpa said no. If the clothes can be worn for use other than driving it was not allowed. per diem in the lower 48 states is at 75% of 52/day for tax year 2007 but in 2008 it will finally top at 80%, the most recent Long Haul newsletter, you can get them at Fly J, had an artical on pg 6 that explains it in laymans terms. It is a hard call on the deduction for the office...how long do you plan to be there and if you move soon well then the taxes can be a problem. I used a cpa for years, I went in with all the figures and he put them into a program ind in a few miniutes he had my taxes figured. He charged my 500.00 back in 2001. I did all the bookwork he just put the figured into a computer. I do it myself now. After 26 yrs of being O/O I am very familiar with what we need to do. Also the biggest thing that gets the O/O is failure to keep up with the quarterly IRS installments. Your first installment for the 2008 tax year will be due Ap 15 the same day as your reg tax bill. You are now paying 15. some % of your SS/Med now vs 7.?% when employed. Keep all receipts and get them organized. Get a software program that lets you put the chk book on the computer and keep things straight. Your fuel taxes.......have him buy fuel according to the mpg the truck uses. If he gets 5/mpg goes 500 miles in a state he needs to buy 100 gal fuel, there are several states that have fuel surcharges so you never buy enough there it seems, also if he watches his cost of fuel in a state and take off the fuel tax pd at the pump you can decide where it is actually the cheapest to buy. i.e. fuel prices in St Louis MO is 3.17 Mo has .17 fuel tax Go to the IL side and it is 3.30. Fuel tax in IL is .367 that make the fuel price w/o tax 2.933. I realize the savings is slight but I used simple figures to make the ex. easier. Remember you all are in business to make a profit not break even. You may have to start simple on implimenting cost saving ways but it is too tough a life to just eek out a living. Oh one more thing on my computer I just used my spreadsheet program and set up a spread for the fuel taxes set in the calculations so ea quarter I just brought up the main form and put in the current qt. info saved it the to current qt. then had my original ready for the nex qt. I then transferred the infor to the IFTA form, piece of cake. good luck


have pony will travel.....

 

did you ever look in to the s corp to find out if you are exempt or not?? I'm s corp, this is my first year, getting ready to do my IFTA and 2029 and have no idea what I'm doing. so much needs to be done and is out there but information is not organized nor easy to follow.. if you don't mind.. are there websites out there or links that you can send me to help me figure out what I'm doing.. been owner operator since aug. 2014 and now have to do this but have no clue. thx

 

Dont forget to file your S/corp co. tax return on march-15 and your personal on april- 15 new late fileing fines on S corp can run up to 2200$

 

Filed as an S corp and taxes were cut in half. That was 7 years ago and was the Best business decision I ever made.