[Redlight]

Hi all, I have been pretty quite on these forms since I joined, and in July I finally go to school to get my CDL.

I have seen allot of people asking about Per Diem on these forms and here is MY opinion, since I have looked into to much myself. The three reasons to let your company take your Per Diem, with maybe a forth.

1) If you can't afford to put food on your table with your current income.

2) You have high debit, I.E. credit card bills. With that said, here is the kicker if you plain to take the lower pay per miles for the extra money you need to make sure that you put 100% of that money towards the bill and don't charge anymore. If you are not disciplined enough to do that then don’t do the company Per Diem.

3) You know enough about investing and are disciplined enough to stick a budget and don't have to worry about getting Social Security. If you know enough to figure your tax liability you can play with the numbers so you can take the extra money and invest it. If you don't know enough about tax's or investing DONT do it.

4) This reason I'm not sure how it would play out. If you get the earned income credit thing this maybe a good way to get extra money from Uncle Sugar on your taxes for being even more low income. BUT make sure you look into it first; since I don’t qualify I have not looked into it.

Remember only do this for a few years, unless you know investing, because it will affect your Social Security heavily when you are older. It also will lower your work mans comp, unemployment, disability, 401K, profit sharing and if you apply for a loan your income will low much lower because everything is figure before taxes and your income will look low. Only take the Per Diem plan for short term or you know how to handle your money.

This is only my opinion so if you disagree or can think of anything else please feel free to flame away.

[got mud?]

Originally Posted by Redlight

Hi all, I have been pretty quite on these forms since I joined, and in July I finally go to school to get my CDL.

I have seen allot of people asking about Per Diem on these forms and here is MY opinion, since I have looked into to much myself. The three reasons to let your company take your Per Diem, with maybe a forth.

1) If you can't afford to put food on your table with your current income.

2) You have high debit, I.E. credit card bills. With that said, here is the kicker if you plain to take the lower pay per miles for the extra money you need to make sure that you put 100% of that money towards the bill and don't charge anymore. If you are not disciplined enough to do that then don’t do the company Per Diem.

3) You know enough about investing and are disciplined enough to stick a budget and don't have to worry about getting Social Security. If you know enough to figure your tax liability you can play with the numbers so you can take the extra money and invest it. If you don't know enough about tax's or investing DONT do it.

4) This reason I'm not sure how it would play out. If you get the earned income credit thing this maybe a good way to get extra money from Uncle Sugar on your taxes for being even more low income. BUT make sure you look into it first; since I don’t qualify I have not looked into it.

Remember only do this for a few years, unless you know investing, because it will affect your Social Security heavily when you are older. It also will lower your work mans comp, unemployment, disability, 401K, profit sharing and if you apply for a loan your income will low much lower because everything is figure before taxes and your income will look low. Only take the Per Diem plan for short term or you know how to handle your money.

This is only my opinion so if you disagree or can think of anything else please feel free to flame away.

my company and probably a few more will send a letter to financial institutions stating your actual income with the per diem included.

with that said the company is really the one that makes out on per diem as they pay less to match your ssi etc.

also some people take it to lower their income for child support

one thing that I do is (I dont take the company per diem) I claim x amount of dependents on my W-4 and they take out a lot less fed taxes then when I file my taxes I claim Y dependents (Y is a lot less than X) and let the per diem make up the difference. my weekly checks are larger but my income tax return is low. this doesn't effect my ssi. if you crunch the numbers like I did it works out well.

[Aligator]

Most companies are like mine where I don't really get that much input.
We get paid for all kinds of things and it comes to about 40CPM - or at least it did last year.
In addition we are paid 50$ layover pay when we get layed over unexpectedly - and that isn't taxed. It's just a seperate check and it happens a few times a month.

Social Security Benefits:
Here's a SS benefit calculator that someone may like....
http://www.ssa.gov/retire2/AnypiaApplet.html