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@steinhoff man glad i am not Union. When i was in Colorado mid and late 90??s. We would make a 4 hour drive early Monday morning before the chickens woke early. Work all week get home about 10pm Saturday night. We were on the clock on both 4 hour trips. We would work 10 to 12 hours on site. Take a hour sometimes hour an a half dinner come back to hotel download process data do comps for next day usually a couple hours. Our boss owner of the company would about once a month come up mid week or towards end of the week and if we had a few he would bring donuts and that evening take us to a nice restaurant. I mean prime rib steak whatever. He paid our hotel but paid cash for per diem in advance. He never once asked us or shorted us on per diem. Sometimes we would get that envelope of per diem and it would be double. We discovered this the first time and left the extra on his desk and said someone made a mistake. Over paid us. Next week he had given that back plus a whole extra week and that weeks. Left a note that said something about I don??t make mistakes you keep this and here??s some extra for being honest. He said if i ever short you let me know. If i over pay its not a mistake. Thank you for the hard work. 18 crews and very little turnover of employees. Now we worked and worked hard. But he took care of us all.
Unfortunately there are a lot more bad boss stories out their than good boss stories. Nevertheless, although I am currently in a union I have never been a “union man”.
@mark-mayer well I believe and I want to believe there are more good bosses than bad ones. But the bad or negative always gets discussed more for sure. It happens with vehicles or reviews etc. only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch. I have had some very good ones. In private sector and military and government. I have had a handful that were poor poor leaders and poor managers. But overall i have to say i have been blessed. Even the good ones ticked me off once in a while like being a kid I probably deserved it ????. My dad use to say hey come over here and let me whip you and i would say for what. He would say whatever wrong thing i did and didn??t get caught yet ????. I don??t know much about unions at all. I am sure like anything they have pros and cons. My mom was a union employee for 33 years. Retired but she has nothing much good to say so i just have not ever joined one. I am on a project now that most of the construction workers are union. I am ignorant about them so really don??t have an opinion either way I guess.
How should the remaining crew members be compensated that don??t have a company vehicle? When the party chief picks them up, when they get to the office or drive their own vehicles to the job site?
You do realize the employees who use trucks for transportation to and from work is considered taxable income by the IRS, plus you as an employer have to report it and pay taxes on that income as well. ????
this one depends on how the company is doing the federal deduction for taxes etc.
only one company I worked with ever did this, and they also nickeled and dimed everything and had a high turnover rate to boot.
My home is a satellite office and I go portal to portal from there.
???
@wagner152
Nothing different from normal. Having a company vehicle sounds like a benefit but it also is a curse in a variety of ways.
You do realize the employees who use trucks for transportation to and from work is considered taxable income by the IRS, plus you as an employer have to report it and pay taxes on that income as well. ????
this one depends on how the company is doing the federal deduction for taxes etc.
only one company I worked with ever did this, and they also nickeled and dimed everything and had a high turnover rate to boot.
My home is a satellite office and I go portal to portal from there.
???
By the statement above in bold, do you mean you are aware of some section within the tax code that allows the personal use (commuting) of a company vehicle to not be taxable income
or
do you mean that the requirement is exactly as FL/GA points out, but there are companies that choose to ignore that requirement?
@jon-payne
Yep.
In all of the private companies (govt work is tax free for the discussion) no one has ever (except my one example) foisted the idea of us being taxed on the use of company vehicles, because it was 100 percent company time. To and from job sites.
Isolation of commuter use is asking for red flags and or abuse and misuse and extra work.
I guess I’ll stop typing about it because I don’t want to be accused of pulling back the cover of the usages of the companies that don’t seem to be applying this part of the tax code…them again, let them prove it’s not being applied correctly.
It’s all about the whole perspective I suppose.
And a rip right fr the regulations:
“
Some employer-owned vehicles are known as ??qualified nonpersonal use vehicles,? and all use is a working condition benefit.
Typically, a vehicle the employee isn??t likely to use more than minimally for personal purposes because of its design qualifies as a nonpersonal use vehicle ?? such as a tow truck or school bus.
See the description of qualified nonpersonal use vehicles to sort out when employer provided vehicle use is taxable and how to value the personal use of an employer-owned vehicle, read Publication 15-B, Employer’s Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits as it’s the primary resource on the topic of fringe benefits. Visit Section 3 ??Fringe Benefit Valuation Rules? for the valuation rules on vehicle use. In general, the fair market value of an employer-provided vehicle is the amount the employee would have to pay a third party to lease the same or similar vehicle on the same or comparable terms in the geographic area where the employee uses the vehicle.
The cents per mile rule, the commuting rule and the lease value rule are the three methods to calculate a value for personal use of a vehicle – but you must use the method that corresponds with your unique facts and circumstances.
Section 4 of Publication 15-B, Employer’s Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits, discusses the tax code requirements for withholding, depositing, and reporting taxable noncash fringe benefits.
An employee??s personal use of an employer-owned automobile is considered a part of an employee??s taxable income and it??s vital to to document business use.
If you can??t determine business versus personal use, the IRS deems the use 100% personal to the employee.
Any use of a company-provided vehicle that isn??t substantiated as business use is included in income, according to the rules in Pub. 15B.
For the latest information about Pub. 15-B, such as recent legislation after its published date, go to IRS.gov and type Publication 15B in the search bar. Click on the PDF and download the publication.
Thanks for watching. Have a wonderful day.
“
So if you’re using the vehicle to do personal stuff, you’re treading on thinner ice.
In all of the private companies (govt work is tax free for the discussion) no one has ever (except my one example) foisted the idea of us being taxed on the use of company vehicles, because it was 100 percent company time. To and from job sites.
I think the “…100% company time. To and from job sites.” is where some people may be surprised by regulations. Not knowing all the details, it sounds like the company that “foisted” the idea was actually complying with the tax code while the other companies chose to ignore it.
The whole scenario brings up an interesting (to me) discussion that I’ll put in a new post so as not to hijack this thread beyond company vehicles.
@jon-payne
fair enough!
damn this site rocks!!
Get your shots, buy an electric vehicle, and pay your taxes, right?
That’s all Uncle Sam asks of you. Now don’t disappoint your Uncle!
You do realize don’t you that lightning installs electricity into rain drops which are eventually gathered into sufficient quanties by rivers that large skimming devices at the power plant retrieve that electricity from the water then condenses it to the point that it can be funneled into power lines for distribution.
Just repeating what I was told.
Make them salaried employees. Share the love!!
A further consideration when letting employees take a company vehicle home would be insurance in case of accidents. Your company vehicle insurance policy may not have to cover accidents occurring during personal use of the company vehicle.
As I understand it, to claim those expenses you have to have detailed logs to support the percentage claimed if any of it is shared.
Square footage has to be solely dedicated to office. The spare bedroom “office” where your wife’s sewing machine is also used, your brother stays over every now and then, and you are starting your garden seeds by the window doesn’t qualify.
.True! But as others on this thread have noted, the reporting requirements have been in place for a long time, and available to those whom wish to claim them, per rules.
And my last understanding of said rules with respect to your example seems to indicate your example misses the forest for the trees. But don’t despair, we have lots of “wiggle room”.
Guessing an average “guest” bedroom is 10’x10′ or 12’x12′, not sure.
MAYBE you can’t claim the entire bedroom, as you cited. BUT, you can claim the actual “workstation area” within the bedroom. Which may include a significant portion of said bedroom due to desk, file cabinets, working table, charging stations, equipment storage, planning maps, logistics space, etc.
As you can see, it won’t take much to “absorb” all the square footage of the guest room. And besides, nobody should have been visiting you during Covid, right? So, no problem there.
Paying your legally obligated taxes is the law. Paying anything more is just donating to the irresponsible government.
The difference between being an employee and a business owner is your respective state of mind. During my corporate years, my employer never subsidized any aspect of my personal life. And there were times they expected me to fund aspects of their operation. Whether is was through monthly “reimbursed expenses”, uncompensated (but employee benefit) drive time, mileage, etc.
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