What you're referring to as "per diem" is really referred to as the Meals and Incidentals allowance and DOES NOT cover hotel expenses. It's only meals and incidentals. Incidentals includes little things like soap, laundry, etc. If you wanted to keep a separate tab for incidentals you can do that, you just take the incidentals portion out of your M&I allowance...I believe it's $3/day, but I'd double-check. If you wanted to do that, you'd take $49/day plus actual costs for incidentals. Keep those hotel receipts, usually good for a few thousand a year for us.

Ahhh, forgot you were an LLC, but an LLC is still a pass-through entity, so it really doesn't matter whether you actually pay yourself a wage or not. Again, if you're showing a loss on the year it's irrelevant.

 

Here's what I got from the accountant:

I happened to see an article in one of my professional tax newsletter about the per diems. They are supposed to be amounts you receive in cash per day paid to employees for work-related or incidental expenses while away from home on business. It allows the employee to not have to meet the substantiation requirements as to amount, date and place and is in lieu of substantiatijng actual expenses. The article referred to a recent tax court case where the employer provided meals and lodging to a merchant seaman. Since the seaman incurred no actual meal expenses, the court disallowed his deduction of per diems. Since the business paid for your incidental expenses, we should not take perdiem travel allowance for 2007

Any thoughts on this No_worries, Solo or others?

 

I think your accountant should get another job. :lol:

Tell them to look up "standard meal allowance" in the IRS code. There is a specific provision that allows truck drivers to deduct 75%, whereas everyone else deducts 50%.

 

Ok thanks Rev. I am kind of stuck with her, as it's someone we know. I already told her twice to just send back my stuff but she said she would fix everything.

I guess what this boils down to is as I have this set up as a company. I think she is saying that the company can't deduct it. What I mean is I had no wages taken so unless it is given to me by the company (which then the company can deduct) that I just can't take the deduction as a company.

I hope that's clear what I'm trying to say. I feel she is wrong too.

 

read this
maybe we could make this a stick since the question keeps coming up?
http://www.landlinemag.com/Archives/...r_business.htm

 

Any thoughts...yeah, but we already discussed those regarding this person's qualifications :lol:

Point her to Publication 463. Section 1 then "What Travel Expenses are Deductible" and the "Meals" portion.

Then under Section 2 (don't ask me why it's in the "Entertainment" section) she needs to read the portion titled "Exceptions to the 50% Limit" with particular attention to the part regarding individual subject to the "hours of service" limits.

Per diem has to do with employees actually getting paid by their employers to reimburse expenses. You know, the scam some of these carriers use to try and convince their drivers to shoulder some of their tax burden :lol: Anyway, per diem is different from the meal allowance and isn't relevant to what you're looking for.

 

Unfortunately, too many people use them interchangeably.

 

Ok so as I'm not taking any wages then I don't need this? Sorry if I'm a pain with this; for some reason I'm having trouble understanding this.

I will read the above link, I'm on a load and driving (pulled over to check this).

She's telling me that my loss was too big; all I did was hire her to cause me aggravation seems like.

 

No, you need to consider your standard meal allowance. It has nothing to do with taking wages. Basically, every day you are out overnight, you get a $52 deduction on your taxes. Then you get 75% of that amount. This only applies if you are itemizing your taxes.