tzskipper

Spend the $50.00 on Flica

Twin Wasp

The IRS has ruled that haircuts are a personal expense and not deductible even if your job requires a certain look.

jaded

Shy, typically big airports are around the $71ish price point... international cities like CUN are around $119.

Jughead135

True, but incomplete. It's one aspect of the "2% deductions" ("Miscellaneous Deductions," in IRS-speak)--if your per diem expenses (i.e., the shortfall between your allowed rate vs your received amount) are your only misc. expense, then they (alone) would have to exceed 2%. Any other expenses (job expenses, to be sure, but also tax expenses and certain income-generating property expenses) will also go into that bucket. Like most tax situations, "it depends" on the individual circumstances whether it will "make a difference" or not....

BillyBaroo

arrgh. Well, let me put the disclaimer in....There may be changes to certain deductible items so check the latest IRS website.

Adlerdriver

As usual, when we start offering each other tax advice there is a lot of bad information and half-truths mixed in with some valid stuff. So, do your homework.

For those wanting to know about the methods for computing your own per diem deduction as an employee expense, here is a link to an old ALPA article. The methods offered are still valid and it gives a reasonably easy explanation of how to use them. Some of the numbers are dated due to the age of the article (like it refers to deducting 70% of the per diem calculation difference rather than the current 80%).

http://www2.alpa.org/DesktopModules/...1532&Tabid=256

The bottom line is that you use one of the approved methods to compute a per diem figure for all your trips in a year with the government rates (for individual cities or the standard rate). You then subtract any per diem paid by your employer for that same year (usually box 12L from your W-2) from the government total, take 80% of the difference and that amount can be claimed as an employee business expense.

As others have said, consistently small cities, probably use the standard rate. Large cities with high rates and definitely international, use the individual city rates.

Whatever method you choose is what you must use for all calculations. You can't switch back and forth.

If you want to compute partial days down to the minute, you can but you must do that consistently as well. It usually works out better to just take the allowed prorated amount of 75% of the city rate for the first and last days of every trip.

The city rate for each 24 hour period is based on the city you slept in. If you had a four-day trip with layovers in ORD, LAX and SEA, you would use ORD rate for day one (75% since it's a partial day), LAX for day two, and SEA for day three and four (75% again on day four since it's a partial day).

I have been doing this for a long time and I highly recommend one of the per diem calculation companies out there. I used to do this all myself and it can take a while. I finally had Prodiem do my calculations one year and I did my own as well for comparison. Using the numbers they came up with (using an IRS approved proprietary method) instead of those I calculated resulted in a significantly higher deduction which paid far more than the $59 they charge and my time saved. It is definitely worth it.

If you don't have a mortgage, property taxes, dependants, etc. that make itemizing worthwhile, then don't bother with this.

Once you start to hit the AMT, you can also stop because it's a waste of money and time.

But, if you're not paying AMT and itemizing is worthwhile, I highly recommend you consider taking this deduction. Granted, if your company is paying you the same or more than the city rates for your overnights, then don't bother. The only way you benefit is if you consistent get paid less in per diem than the government rate for your overnight cities. Even if you only fly domestic, it may be worthwhile. If you're getting $48 per day and you overnight in NYC and LAX all the time at $71 per day, you will definitely benefit.

Another link with some good info:
http://www3.alpa.org/Portals/Alpa/de...ctions2012.pdf

ShyGuy

I use Airline Crew Taxes in Houston. If I spend $50 on Flica, does it give a form that another tax firm can use to file? Or just let Crew Taxes handle it?

usafa

For a requested $5 donation, I would check out http://dataweb.no-ip.com/onlineperdiemHome.html

I have used Pro-Diem and this one, the numbers are within $10 but you'll have your report within 5 minutes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

atpcliff

AMT: If you pay AMT in one year, the next you may not have to pay any. It is very complicated and variable if you have to pay AMT or not in any particular tax year.