Werner Per Diem fraud

Are you in the habit of giving interest free loans That is what you are advocating

 

Per Diem will hurt you when you decide to buy a car or apply for a mortgage. you won't have enough earnings to qualify for a loan. Oh but wait, you think that having more money in your pocket at the end of the week is better.........WRONG! Unfortunately banks and lending institutions look at gross earnings, not reimbursements for expenses which is what per diem is. So if you apply for a loan you can deduct the "reimbursements" off your gross earnings and not be able to qualify for a loan. Here's another way to look at it. Per diem is now $59 per day while on the road. How many of you spend that much per day? I'm sure not many. I would rather be able to not have per diem, pay my expenses myself and use all my earnings as gross income and do my deductions at the end of the year. At this stage of my life I have a mortgage, 2 car leases and excellent credit so the per diem really doesn't affect me. Now if I was 30 years younger and just starting out I would rather not have per diem.

 

For some people that's the only way they can save money. Me? I wouldn't give Uncle Sam one extra penny!

 

You can deduct MORE at the end of the year, if the company does NOT pay you per diem.

How hard is this to understand ?????

 

I don't fell sorry for anyone that signed that piece of paper. They dropped in in front of us said it meant we would be making tax free money. And then rushed everyone to sign. Then they go to me and I said Hold on still reading. He said if you don't want tax free money that's fine by me forget it and took the paper from in font of me. Umm HELLO people. You Read Everything YOU sign before signing it. I still read all the fine print on bills before I sign them to make sure it doesn't say anything about me being responsible for anything.

 

I have read through a few posts and despite the blatant hammer and sickle types a few people fail to realize that OTR truckers are not covered under the fair labor standards act. So when you say that workers have rights, you are not talking about OTR truck drivers. They in fact do not have the same rights as most workers.

It's simple. If you have to give your money to the company in lower pay per mile to get a few bucks that are not taxed. They are bending you over.

 

Most likely planning on social security for retirement as well What did Mr. White say...............






You can't fix stupid

I will never understand people that do that, or the really smart ones that when asked how much they paid in taxes respond "I didn't they gave me XXXXX"

 

Would you rather get paid back for a interest-free loan you gave, or pay back a interest-free loan you unknowingly took?

Hell, werner had my w4 form screwed up the whole time i worked there. 0 exemptions, around 200 a week taken out in taxes....dang! I gave em a BIG interest free loan there, lol...

That's funny, that never happened to me! They handed it to us in a stack of other papers, told us what it was, and no pressure at all, no taking it away either. Then when i was assigned a tractor after training, i was handed it again, no pressure no nothing...i didnt sign it!

 

I've talked to the IRS about the forced per diem plans, at length.

The short of it is, right now, companies can do this, and far worse.

If Werner is claiming they get no financial gain from forcing drivers to take their per diem plan, they are lying through their (body orifice of your choice). The per diem plan is but the latest way to screw the driver out of significant money.

First way they make money is they get 80% of your full per diem for every day you are out away from home. In other words, they get your tax refund you would normally get.

Next, they get massive savings on their own taxes (State and Federal Unemployment Insurance, FICA, Workman's Compensation insurance, Medicare, etc).

They're making many millions of dollars weekly of the per diem program, both in reduced wages, charging drivers a "fee," and the massive tax savings they enjoy (while yours effectively goes up).

Other ways the per diem hurts drivers:

Disability, Workman's Comp, and Unemployment Insurance benefits paid to drivers who become ill, get hurt on the job, or lose their jobs, is based on your declared income, your per diem pay doesn't count.

Your Social Security retirement benefits is based upon your declared income, the per diem doesn't count

These two alone reduce your potential income by 30% at least (depending on how the per diem is paid).

Your credit takes a hit, because most lenders do not see the per diem as income. This one I discovered recently, as a very nasty surprise, when I recently tried to by a new car (I only qualified for a 4 year old used one as a result). Seems my credit score dropped 130 points because my income dropped drastically under my company's per diem plan.

There are many ways per diem pay hurts a driver, and many more ways companies profit massively from forcing drivers to accept this pay scheme. And the IRS says that, under current law, there is nothing that can be done about it.

Oh, get this one...

If you have no fixed residence (provable by rent receipts, mortgage payment receipts, or property tax receipts), the IRS advises not spending one penny of the per diem, because you do not qualify for the per diem deduction. Yes, the employer can still force you to take the per diem, but now you become responsible for ALL the taxes that should have been withheld, including taxes the employer was supposed to pay. The IRS estimates, based on my company's per diem plan (they take 16 cents, give me 13 back), I will owe several hundred dollars more than what I was paid in per diem (I had no fixed residence in 2009). The tax bill is roughly $14,000.

Now, there is one thing you can do, fairly simple actually. That "fee" you are charged to be on the per diem plan you wanted nothing to do with? You can file Form 1099 against the employer, forcing them to pay taxes on the income from the "fee," while having a deduction for yourself.

Oh, did the employer "forget" to list that "fee" as income on their quarterly returns? The IRS would consider that willful tax fraud, according the the gentleman I spoke with at the IRS!

For all those who think per diem is just great, think again. Any company that forces you to take their per diem plan is in deep trouble financially, and they are ripping you off to balance their books. Remember, they get 80% of your per diem deduction, whether you get miles that day or not. You get part of it back based solely on your miles, and what you get will be far less than what you would have gotten being paid normally in your end of the year tax refund.

If companies couldn't make money off the per diem, they wouldn't even bother with it. This is a scam payroll scheme that hurts drivers, pure and simple, no matter how you look at it.

And, for now, it's perfectly legal.

 

I am going to copy that post down to quote when this subject comes up. Written so much better than I could have.

This is not new. My mom informs me that when my dad worked for Munson, they had forced per diem as well. They've been out of business so long that there trucks still looked like this at the end!